Written in 1981-1982, this Heidelberg political science "Habilitations"-thesis is an early and path finding analysis of the emerging regionalism in Western Europe. Starting from a comparative overview it concentrates in a two-step reconstruction on the societal and political processes leading to the explosion of Corsican nationalism in the 70ies. This reconstruction is grounded in a constructivist empirical opinion poll amongst the members of the "Comité Central" of the "Unione di u Populu Corsu".