Studies on nationalism are legion. The phenomenon has been analysed from almost every angle, both in liberal democracies and in autocratic or totalitarian regimes. Moreover, the constitution of minority nationalisms, the ideologies they draw on, the political dynamics to which they give rise, the mobilisations within civil society, the political demands put forward within political systems in the form of political parties, interest groups, their instrumentalization by political elites as well as the state responses (in the form of new institutional arrangements in particular) have also been studied extensively. This issue has, among other things, attracted the attention of researchers interested in the configuration of power relations in federal states following the expression of claims by national minority movements. This means that the relationship between minority and majority nationalism is of particular interest to political science.

The problem of competing representations of national minority political communities by majority groups in the public space has received little attention in political science. Rather, the opposite is dominant, namely how minority groups are represented in relation to the majority group. Although the presence of national minorities exists in several political systems, we are particularly interested in multinational federal states. Federalism provides minority groups with institutional structures, with varying degrees of power, to channel, structure and demand change in order to gain recognition, but also to increase their autonomy.

The problem is whether or not the majority group’s portrayal of the national minority group is based on a radical critique of the latter's identity representation and political claims. Does this radical critique contribute to reinforcing the social norms and identity representations of the majority group, which constructs itself, among other things, in opposition to its national minority? Is the use of negative discursive representations of the national minority part of differentiation and inferiorization mechanism, or does it also serve to define the identity of the majority political community? How are these opposing discursive representations transposed into the political relations between the two political communities?

The question is how and in what terms the main spokespersons of the national majority groups construct and disseminate a particular representation of national minority(ies) cohabiting on the same federal territory. These representations can be deployed in several discursive spaces: mainstream newspapers, television, electronic and social media, citizen groups, political parties, etc. They may be constructed by political elites, political commentators and analysts, but also expressed more widely in the media.

These conflicts of representation are particularly salient when issues emerge on which the majority and minority political communities are at odds. The most obvious case is that of the political future of the majority nation, which may be expressed through a demand for greater autonomy, but which may go as far as the desire to secede. However, more circumscribed issues can also give rise to divergent preferences that can be equally divisive.

To facilitate comparison, we would welcome case studies or analyses of multinational federations that adhere, often in an imperfect way, to broadly defined liberal democratic principles.

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Frontiers in Political Science

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