Jürgen Grimm is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Vienna.

Leonie Huddy is Professor at the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University, New York.

Peter Schmidt is Professor emeritus at the Department of Political Science, University of Giessen, and State Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), Moscow.

Josef Seethaler is Deputy Director of the Institute for Comparative Media and Communication Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Klagenfurt.

Globalization, immigration and economic crisis challenge the conceptions of nations, trans-national institutions and post-ethnic societies which are central topics in social sciences' discourses. This book examines in an interdisciplinary and international comparative way structures of national identity which are in conflict with or supporting multi-ethnic diversity and trans-national connectivity. The book’s first section seeks to clarify the concepts of national identity, nationalism, patriotism and cosmopolitism and to operationalize them consistently. The next section regards the diversity within national states and the consequences for the management of identity and intra-national integration. The third section focuses on external integration between different nations by searching for the "squaring of the circle" between the bonding with co-patriots and the critical reflection of one's own national perspective in relation to others. The last section explores to what extent and in which ways media use shapes collective identity.