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This paper engages a close analytical reading of the lyrics of ‘God Save the King/Queen’ in order to understand what the functional survival of this song tells us about the rhetorical/affective investments of national devotion in the British sense. This study asks also how the lyrics of ‘God Save the King/Queen’ figure in the general definition of anthem and in the generic classification of anthems worldwide? Because of the song's international spread, and status as ‘Ur-anthem’, much may be gleaned from it as to both the nature of the speech act entailed in the prayer-type of anthem and the nature of ‘anthem quality’ more generally. ‘Anthem quality’, for the purposes of this paper, is defined as that soul stirring effect which certain combinations of music and lyrics achieve, most typically in the service of national affiliation. Theories of nation and nationalism are drawn on to frame affective relations between nation, state and citizenry as implied by, fostered by and utilized in anthems. Parodies and other derivative texts are considered in order to reach a better understanding of the sources and the pragmatic uses of anthem quality in the world today. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the social psychological aspects of British national identification among British South Asians, which constitutes the largest ethnic minority group in Britain. Identity process theory can elucidate the social and psychological ‘functions’ of Britishness for social actors, offering a holistic account of national identification within this population. The paper provides a discussion of nationhood and the construction of national identity, temporal factors in national identification, its cognitive and affective aspects, the psychological ‘functionality’ of Britishness, and its social representations. It is argued that a civic, instrumental conception of Britishness might facilitate access to this identity among British South Asians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The relationships between socialism, national identity and patriotism have generated a large literature dating back to Marx's dictum: 'The working men have no country.' Much of that literature focused on the supposed incompatibilities between socialism and patriotism. In Britain, most socialists simply got on with it and were in various ways patriotic all the same. This paper discusses the orgins and characteristics of a left-wing patriotism developed by much of the British left, and argues that such appeals to national identity had a remarkable vitality through the Edwardian period and into the First World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ever since its incorporation in UK law, the European Convention on Human Rights has attracted hostile press reporting. This study examines how the Human Rights Act, the Convention's UK domestic equivalent, is represented in newspapers in the devolved nations. Its main finding is that, over time, the press there has become more supportive of the Act, deviating from the editorial line adopted by many English national titles. European human rights act as a conduit of the devolved nations' belonging as European nations, making it a potentially important issue in the re-imagining of national identity in the era of devolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines nationalist impulses toward a familiar, traditional heteronormativity through the language and imagery of a sample of tabloid newspapers in Britain during the Falklands War in 1982. In doing so, it asks how tabloid representation of the war created a particular and normative version of 'Britishness', central to which was the English woman, whose body became the site for a specific coalescing of race, gender and sexuality; a fixed notion of whiteness and normative heterosexuality located in the particular, unstable cultural space of a struggling 'post-colonial' Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the 2008 global crisis, Italy has experienced a relevant resumption of emigration. Tens of thousands of young Italians have chosen London as their favourite destination, giving rise to a new Italian community in the city. This article focuses on the transformation of migrants' national identity and on a distinctive device of identity expression: language. Sample cases, extracted from a dataset collected for an original doctoral project, are used to explain how the insertion of English elements in speakers' native language become the expression of the loss of pure national identity and of the renegotiation of transnational and migratory identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains how the negative identity of second-generation Alevi-Kurds in the UK has been transmitted intergenerationally, linked to their history of persecuted exclusion in Turkey and to the transnational settlement of Alevi migrants in the UK, and how this sense of marginalization and invisibility in the receiving country can be addressed. Education is identified as a starting point for the underachievement and disaffection of Alevi pupils, which can lead them into more serious trouble and descent into the rainbow underclass. In the quest to tackle this identity issue, a unique collaborative action research project was set up between an Alevi community centre, local schools and a university to develop the world’s first Alevi lessons as part of the compulsory Religious Education curriculum in British schools. The Alevi Religion and Identity Project is described and evaluated in terms of its outcomes, especially its contribution towards a more positive Alevi identity as a reflection of a vibrant community. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite its hegemony as a financial centre, the City of London occupied a relatively minor place in the discourse of British imperialism. Periodic collapses and scandals made the City an inscrutable source of anxiety, engendering a need to distance it from the mainstream of national life. This distancing centred on doubts about the City’s national identity, stemming from its increasingly cosmopolitan interests and its contingent of prominent Jews, who were conventionally understood to have no nationality. Scrutiny of discourse on the City leads to a richer understanding of the role of ‘Semitic discourse’ in the construction of British national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although elite commentators have regularly predicted an English backlash to the asymmetric devolution settlement, public opinion surveys generally reveal widespread acceptance of the principle of Scottish self-governance. In this article, I explore some of the reasoning behind English responses to UK constitutional change, drawing on a comprehensive programme of conversational interview research initiated in 2000. Analysis suggests that although people in England often endorse sincere and consistent views on various aspects of the devolution process, currently these are not typically salient, central or strongly held, and are rarely rooted in detailed domain-specific information. In the first decade following the devolution settlement, English responses to UK constitutional reform have tended to be based on abstract values of national rights and procedural justice rather than on calculations of comparative national self-interest. However, popular acceptance of the new constitutional arrangements may be contingent upon a particular set of ideological circumstances, and it would be premature to assume that asymmetric devolution necessarily reflects the settled will of the English people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 10 years have passed since the current phase of devolution in the United Kingdom started and the article investigates its effects on Scottish political discourse on national identity focusing on the unionist version. Based on an analysis of recent political utterances in Scotland, the article argues that the current devolution settlement has revived and entrenched unionist nationalism in the Scottish political discourse. It also shows that one of the effects of devolution on the debate on national identity is a clearer sign of increasing contestation of Britishness, and suggests that devolution is a double-edge sword in management of multiple national identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Scottish National Party (SNP) has been strongly critical of attempts to resuscitate British national identity and has sought to present an alternative Scottish cultural and political identity that is projected as ‘wholly civic’. However, questions persist as to how the SNP understand concepts such as citizenship and nationality and the extent to which their civic nationalism is reflected empirically in speeches and policies, particularly since forming a minority Scottish government in 2007. This article seeks to explore how the SNP and other Scottish separatists construct an independent Scottish state, nation and people. In particular, it will assess how Scottish separatists address Scottish nationality, multi-nationality and also its transnational imperial legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article concentrates on New Zealand's constitutional and cultural identity through the fascinating political meanderings between independence and dependence in political and constitutional matters that surrounded the ratification of the Statute of Westminster. New Zealand was the last of the Dominions to pass the Statute in 1947, sixteen years after it could have done in 1931 when most other Dominions did. New Zealand did not ratify this critical Act because it did not wish to appear 'disloyal' to Britain even though the 'Mother Country' had no problems with this happening. New Zealand's position mirrored the country's ambivalence between a separate national identity and interdependence moored with Britain and the Commonwealth. Though this may seem contradictory, these policies and positions accurately reflected what was perceived as New Zealand's interests. The politics and reactions of New Zealand towards the Statute of Westminster betrayed the reality that New Zealand's independence lay, in the government's mind of that era, in the country's dependence and deference to Britain whether London wanted it or not. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article claims that while the concept of ethno-nationalism may be taken as shorthand for describing what appear to be the dominant features of certain political conflicts, it possesses little explanatory value -- instead obscuring and confusing more than it reveals. Using the Northern Ireland case as an illustrative example, it is argued that the reluctance to problematise or contextualise ethnic claims means that ethnic conflict theorists may effectively contribute to the reproduction of dominant narratives. The article explicitly rejects the notion that a single framework should replace the ethno-national model. Instead, it highlights the importance of focusing issues of timing and historical sequencing, source criticism and empirical evidence, as well as the significance of marginal narratives and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 gave an opportunity to remake not just political institutions, but ethno-religious distinction in Northern Ireland. This article looks at how individuals reconstruct their way of being Protestant in Ireland and Northern Ireland in the context of social and political change. It shows individuals renegotiating their ways of being Protestant, attempting sometimes successfully to change its socio-cultural salience, blurring ethnic boundaries, distinguishing religious and ethno-national narratives, drawing universalistic political norms from their particular religious tradition. It argues that these renegotiations are highly sensitive to the macro-political context. Changes in this context affect individuals through their changing cognitive understandings and strategic interests that, at least in this case, are as important to identification as social solidarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether shared national values form a vital component in the construction and development of national identity. In so doing, it challenges Kymlicka and Norman in their assumption that shared values have little relevance for national identity. Drawing upon competing nationalist discourses in Canada, Quebec, Scotland and the United Kingdom, we argue that the idea of shared values serves as a useful tool in shaping and reinforcing national identities within multinational states. Such values contribute to defining the collective conception of national identity, describing who we are as a people, and what it is that binds us together while distinguishing us from others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes some of the ways that 'Greater Britain' functioned as a component of British national identity for some of those devoted to the ideal of a united empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As outspoken advocates of a united empire, historians such as Charles Lucas and Hugh Egerton, promoted and adapted what was essentially a cultural 'story' that helped shape and communicate this identity. The article also seeks to demonstrate how these ideas were reflected in a variety of organisations that supported the ideal of a united empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]