Following Brubaker (2004), this panel seeks to avoid "groupist" assumptions. Rather than treating stateless nations as homogeneous groups, all papers examine variation in preferences. Focusing on public opinion-makers, Karagiannis and Guidi examine why Catalan and Flemish intellectuals may be more or less nationalist/sovereignist. Paying more attention to how political argumentation plays out among the general public, Hierro and Gallego conduct a series of survey experiments aimed at understanding whether, and if so how, democratic conflict among the centre and the periphery polarizes ethnic identities. Based on repeated cross-section samples of the Catalan population, Tormos, Muñoz, and Hierro make a slightly different argument according to which it may not only be the case that identity leads to constitutional preferences, but also the other way round. Finally, Delaney, Henderson, and Liñeira focus on the post-argumentation stage, and examine the extent to which measured risk aversion predicts voting intentions in independence referendums.