Language constitutes a very sensitive nexus between the concepts of territory and community. Though a fundamental issue in contemporary societies, it remains relatively unaddressed by political scientists. This book promotes a better understanding of the connection between the concepts of identity, territory and language in the context of an enlarged Europe. We propose a portrait of the actual place of regional languages in European politics. Ethno-linguistic mobilisations have occurred in very different contexts, and their interpretation needs to take into account varying configurations and conditions of success that we label as situational, institutional, and socio-political. The book combines empirical case studies drawn from Spain, the UK, Poland, France, Ireland and Canada with comparative, conceptual and theoretical insights into linguistic uniformity and diversity. The various chapters in the book go beyond description. The originality of the work is to bridge the institutionalisation of language regimes, the sociological analysis of languages rights' movements, and the normative underpinnings that ought to underpin language claims.

1. Ethnolinguistic Mobilizations in Europe Jean-Baptiste Paul Harguindéguy and Alistair Cole 2. Blocked Articulation and Nationalist Hegemony in Catalonia Thomas Jeffrey Miley 3. The Jacobin Republic and Language Rights. Ethnolinguistic Mobilizations in France Alistair Cole and Jean-Baptiste Paul Harguindéguy 4. Ethnopolitical Mobilization without Groups: Nation-Building in Upper Silesia Magdalena Dembinska 5. Doing As They Are Told? Subregional Language Policies in the Basque Country, Catalonia and Wales Patrick Carlin 6. On the Right to Linguistic Survival Huw Lewis 7. Perfidious Hope: The Legislative Turn in Official Minority Language Regimes Colin Williams