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Although Eurovision helps us see how "we" and "them" are constructed in a country, this signing contest has never been studied from this viewpoint. The Republic of Moldavia, independent since 1991, is torn by an ongoing struggle for defining its nationhood. This article applies a method drawn from critical discourse analysis to three local Moldavian newspapers to show how Eurovision and, along with it, politics take part in constructing a "we", the "Other" and, ultimately, the "nation" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This sociological approach examines the social and political aspects of the work done by historians at the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) in Poland as well as their ways of writing historical narratives. Light is shed on the institutional factors that severely restrict researchers' scientific autonomy, since the IPN approves research programs. The election of the IPN's leadership is a key moment of political dependency. This article leads us to reconsider the role of historians as producers of the official historical narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major dimension of territorial issues in Western Europe is the politicization of regional identities, a bottom-up process mobilizing regionalist and nationalist parties. These political organizations have developed programs based on ethnic distinctions and territorial claims inside existing nation-states. Over the last decades, they have augmented their political influence enough to force ruling elites in major western European democracies to pass reforms for decentralization. To explain these trends, the literature in political science has adopted two main approaches. The first (in the wake of Stein Rokkan's pioneering work) analyses how territorial differences are constructed and modified, whereas the second studies the politicization of regional identities as part of a larger issue, namely the reworking of the figure of the nation-state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The place of Russians from the "near abroad" in Russian Federation politics is examined by studying the evolution of the theme of the "diaspora" since 1990 and the means used by lobbies for defending Russians. Since the second half of the 1990s, political authorities have addressed this issue. The implementation of the Repatriation Program in 2006-2007 provides evidence that the compatriots' issue in the near abroad has become part of the Russian state's new strategy to recover power. The theme of the diaspora is slowly being normalized as it leaves the field of radical nationalism to become the subject of a pragmatic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reworking the national memory around the changes (officialized by the Potsdam Conference, July-August 1945) in the Polish state's territory and population provides an example of how this memory and its vocation changes. Between defending the national territory and condemning the forced displacement of populations, this looking back on the past involves apparently contradictory political and social issues. Those who advocate history and those who convey the "common" memory are critically reexamining the nation's history. Their involvement shows how Polish nationalism is being modified under the sway of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]