This paper discusses constitutional claims proposed by national identities. Constitutional debates over the roles of national identities are traditionally associated with the protection of minority rights, yet there is perhaps a larger group of constitutional demands that is fostered by identity groups (e.g. Scot or the Catalonian) . These identity-based constitutional claims are organized into a constitutional programme by an institution with a democratic mandate such regional government. The programme normally includes ‘a path for constitutional recognition‘. So the aim of this presentation is to clarify the distinctive status of identity-based constitutional demands in modern and pluralist constitutional theory by explaining that some of the objections against their recognition are unfounded. I will contend that a modern constitutional system that aspires to create a set of communal alliances between strangers should seek to retrieve rational discourses, not to impose them.