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Abstract This article explores the link between identity, legitimacy and political order in Europe. The central argument is that the politics of identity have enormous salience in the new Europe and for the European Union at this juncture of its development, because the Union is moving from issues of instrumental problem‐solving to fundamental questions about its nature as a part‐formed polity. Problems of identity are raised by the politicization of immigration, the fragmentation of the post‐war order, regionalism, the revival of the ultra Right and the process of European integration itself. The article concludes with an assessment of the affective dimension of integration.
Brigid Laffan (Fri,) studied this question.