Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe
The resilience of nationalism in contemporary Europe may seem paradoxical at a time when the nation state is widely seen as being 'in decline'. The contributors of this book see the resurgence of nationalism as symptomatic of the quest for identity and meaning in the complex modern world. Challenged from above by the supranational imperatives of globalism and from below by the complex pluralism of modern societies, the nation state, in the absence of alternatives to market consumerism, remains a focus for social identity. Nation and Identity in Contemporary Europe takes a fully interdisciplinary and comparative approach to the 'national question'. Individual chapters consider the specifics of national identity in France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Iberia, Russia, the former Yugoslavla and Poland, while looking also at external forces such as economic globalisation, European supranationalism, and the end of the Cold War. Setting current issues and conflicts in their broad historical context, the book reaffirms that 'nations' are not 'natural' phenomena but 'constructed' forms of social identity whose future will be determined in the social arena. (Less)
A Sociopsychological Conception of Collective Identity: The Case of National Identity as an Example
The present article delineates the complex structure of collective identity by incorporating two levels of analysis. The first, the micro level, pertains to individual society members’ recognition of and categorization as belonging to a group, with the accompanying cognitive, emotional, and behavioral consequences. The second, the macro level, pertains to the notion of collective identity that denotes the shared awareness by constituents of a society of being members of a collective. This level is founded on two pillars: One pillar consists of generic features that characterize the collective identity. These features apply to macro-level collectives and allow a comparison among them. The other pillar is particular and consists of content characteristics that provide the unique features of the collective identity. The conceptual framework is applied to the analysis of the national collective identity as a case example. The contributions and implications of the described conception are discussed.
Genetic Effects of Acute and Chronic Ionizing Irradiation on Pinus sylvestrisL. Inhabiting the Chernobyl Meltdown Area
The main results of the 12-year radiation-genetic monitoring of radiobiological, cytogenetic, and genetic parameters in Pinus sylvestrisforest plantation from the Chernobyl meltdown area are presented. The acute ionizing irradiation at doses > 1 Gy was shown to induce formation of morphoses and depressed growth; at doses >2 Gy, the reproductive ability of the trees declined. The radiobiological parameters showed a linear or close to linear dose-dependence relationship. The acute irradiation at a dose of 0.5 Gy induced cytogenetic and genetic effects that were significantly higher than the corresponding control values. The relationship between the cytogenetic effects and the absorbed dose was exponential. The dependence of the mutation frequency at specific loci on the absorbed dose was described by a nonlinear curve. The results of cytogenetic analysis of seedlings obtained from seeds annually collected in zones of slight, moderate, and strong damage of Pinus sylvestrisL. are presented.