nationalisms. Even so, it is important to recognize how connections
with continental Europe have helped the Irish national cause not just
in terms of historical French support against Britain, but also in terms
of the economic aid offered by the EU.
A prominent voice in the ënew nationalismí debate, Tom Nairn,
discounts the possibility of a neo-colonial ëEuropean superstateí in a
continent so politically divided as Europe, and identifies a significant
difference between ëinternationalismí and ëinternationalityí.^12 For
Nairn, ëinternationalityí is not leftist and he connects it with the neo-
colonial capitalism of American multi-national corporations. In
ëInternationalism and the Second Comingí (1996) Nairn notices how
historically, cosmopolitanism slid into troubling confusion in the post-
1789 world. The effect of this was that internationality became more
difficult to distinguish from imperialism, as waves of metropolitan
civilization imparters began to work, ëeach one convinced of his
innate right to uplift and lead the way. Great Powers make inter-
nationality their own by a sleight of hand which seems perfectly
natural when one happens to be holding most of the good cards.í^13
Against this he argues for ëinternationalismí between regions as more
democratic than the ëinternationalityí of the ëGreat Powersí or nation-
states:
Internationalism can only be built upon a certain style of nationalism whose
construction rests more upon democracy than upon ethnos. A durable and
bearable disorder will rely more upon chosen identities and less upon the
classical motifs of language, folk, custom and blood.^14Here, Nairn makes an important differentiation between ethnic
nationalism and a more democratic form of nationalism. Nairnís dis-
ordered and implicitly more democratic notion of a ënew nationalismí
is close to the ëpost-nationalistí Federal Europe of Regions imagined
by Kearney and Hume, and the republican heritage that lies beyond
the nation-state, cited by Habermas in the epigraph.
12 Cf. Tom Nairn, ëSupra-Nationalism and Europeí, The Break-Up of Britain
(London: Verso, 1981), pp.206ñ28.
13 Nairn, ëInternationalism and the Second Comingí, Mapping the Nation,
pp.271ñ2.
14 Ibid., p.275.