Post-Cold War Nationalism in Germany and Austria: A Comparative Study

A majority of the studies concerning the European continent have focused only upon the well-chronicled sagas left behind by specific countries. Volumes have been published on the French Revolution, German Empires, Italian Fascism, the Hapsburg Empire, and the rises and falls of each individual nation. An increasingly popular euphemism is put forth in Chaos Theory, wherein a butterfly beating its wings in Japan will alter the weather in New York City. In science as in life, it is well known that a chain of events can have a point of crisis that can magnify small changes. From such a perspective, a study focusing upon only one specific European Nation is confined in its focus. Each event in Europe has historically set off chain-reactions, reverberating from nation to nation, effe~ting other courses of events. Perhaps at no time has this been more evident than in modern-day Europe, a conglomeration of different descents, languages, territories, customs, traditions, religions, and nationalisms. The optimal approach for testing hypotheses involving Europe, therefore, is a cross-sectional design in which these norms vary just as they do on the continent itself