Between nationalism and regionalism: Higher education policy and national/regional identity in Quebec and Wallonia

This article explores the nexus between nationalism/regionalism and higher education policy at the subnational scale. Relying on a Critical Discourse Analysis, the study investigates how notions of national/regional identity are discursively embedded in the higher education policy discussions of Quebec and Wallonia. A comparative approach based on the distinct logics of subnational politics in both cases is used. Whereas Quebec is considered a quintessential example of ‘subnationalism’, the Walloon case is defined as a political regionalist movement. The findings reveal the permeation of substate identity interests in both Quebec and Wallonia's higher education policy discussions, underscoring parallels between them despite their diverging characters. At the same time, the discourse analysis sheds light on important distinctions in the manner in which this identity discourse is articulated. By juxtaposing identity politics in ‘nationalist’ and ‘regionalist’ movements, the study aims to bridge their conceptualisation and critically reflect on the categorisation of subnational movements.     

Footprint or fingerprint: international cultural policy as identity policy

This article focuses on government policy aimed at the presentation of the nation abroad through cultural activities and its relation to national identity, external cultural policy. The methodological framework is offered by the discourse analysis of Wodak and the notion of identity of Laclau and Mouffe, treating policy as a discourse. A closer look is taken at the concept of cultural diplomacy and the closely related term nation branding. This article will show how the shift in paradigm also changes the role of ‘the other’ in the construction of national identity and how this influences the role of the arts in international cultural policy.     

Minority nations and attitudes towards immigration: the case of Quebec

Growing international migration constitutes a tremendous challenge for contemporary democracies, no more so than for minority nations. An important challenge for the latter is one of acceptance of immigration from the native‐born population, in a context in which immigrant can be seen as both a cultural and a political threat. In this article we ask what explains attitudes towards immigration in minority nations. More specifically, we seek to provide answers to these questions: What is the impact of cultural insecurity on attitudes towards immigration in minority nations? Is strong attachment to a minority nation associated with less positive attitudes towards immigration? And finally, are proponents of independence for minority nations more likely to favour a reduction in the level of immigration than those who oppose it? The article seeks to answer these questions by exploring the case of Quebec.     

Minority nationalism and immigrant integration in Canada

Immigrant integration is currently a prominent issue in virtually all contemporary democracies, but countries in which the historic population itself is deeply divided – particularly those with substate nations and multiple political identities – present some interesting questions where integration is concerned. The existence of multiple and potentially competing political identities may complicate the integration process, particularly if the central government and the substate nation promote different conceptions of citizenship and different nation‐building projects. What, then, are the implications of minority nationalism for immigrant integration? Are the added complexities a barrier to integration? Or do overlapping identities generate more points of contact between immigrants and their new home? This article addresses this question by probing immigrant and non‐immigrant ‘sense of belonging’ in Canada, both inside and outside Quebec. Data come from Statistics Canada's Ethnic Diversity Study. Our results suggest that competing nation‐building projects make the integration of newcomers more, rather than less, challenging.     

On the shock of civil war: cultural trauma and national identity in Finland and Ireland

What role does national identity play after civil war? Is reconstruction possible on the basis of an existing identity, or does a new identity have to be found? Much depends on whether narratives of conflict are unifying. I use the tools of cultural sociology to explain why the Finnish Civil War of 1918 has become a unifying ‘cultural trauma’ for the Finns, whereas the Irish Civil War of 1922–23 never became the dominant referent in Irish national identity. The difference is explained by the greater shock civil war posed to Finnish national identity.     

Personality and national identity: How the Big Five relate to civic and ethnic conceptions of nationhood

In recent years, the concept of national identity has recaptured the imagination of public opinion research and with it individuals' conceptions of what it takes to be a “true” member of their nation. This investigation aims to add to the explanation of varying conceptions of nationhood by scrutinising their personality-based foundations. It provides the first systematic analysis of a yet unstudied link between the Big Five personality traits and two ideal-typical conceptions of nationhood: civic and ethnic national identity. Using 18 samples from six European countries (Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom), each containing around 1000 individuals, we uncover psychological underpinnings of attitudes towards national membership, revealing several consistent trait patterns. We find a negative relationship between openness to experience and an ethnic national identity, while conscientiousness associates positively with the civic ideal type of national identity content. The findings presented extend current understandings of how people conceptualise national belonging and provide evidence that distinct conceptions of nationhood are related to different dispositional foundations.     

Indifference towards national identity: what young adults think about being English and British*

ABSTRACT. National identity should be sharply distinguished from nationalism. People speak by reference to a general and assumed membership of a country, and routine markers of behaviour and style may exhibit this sense of membership. This matter‐of‐fact acceptance of ‘national’ membership does not guarantee enthusiasm for the ‘nation’ and it cannot be taken as a signal of nationalism, banal or otherwise. While theoretical statements and assumptions often suggest that national identity is fundamental to individuals in contemporary societies, empirical investigation of people talking about national identity uncovers some broad strands of indifference and hostility towards national identity in general, and towards British and English identities in particular. This may reflect young adults' wish not to appear ‘nationalist’ just as many would wish not to appear racist. But the level of apathy and antagonism towards national identity among young adults suggests that we ought to reconsider any assumption that national identity is ‘normally’ a powerful and important marker, embraced with enthusiasm.     

Exchange on the quantitative measurement of ethnic and national identity*

In recent decades, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of quantitative techniques in the study of ethnicity and nationalism, without, however, a sufficient amount of reflection on how these techniques have contributed to our understanding of ethnic and national identities. As such, in this exchange three sets of authors answer questions about the degree to which it is possible to use quantitative data to measure ethnic and national identities, which types of methods are most suitable in measuring these identities and what the major research findings of this quantitative research are that were not possible using qualitative approaches.     

Situating banal nationalism,the culture wars,and civil religion: governing localized geographies of national identity in Indiana

Various material forms of national identity have become ubiquitous features of the post-9/11 American cultural landscape. This research specifically examines the ‘In God We Trust’ (IGWT) license plate in the state of Indiana as a material expression and territorialized form of national identity. While conceptually anchored in banal nationalism research, exploring the spatial patterns of adoption or non-adoption of IGWT license plates by Indiana residents is only possible through situating this research through the mediating lens of the culture wars and civil religion. Although the IGWT license plate project legislatively materialized through the localized spatial networks of non-state actors in the context of a new and conservative state–citizen relationship firmly anchored in the culture wars, adoption behavior is also mediated through the much broader influence of civil religion. We conduct a quantitative analysis to determine license plate spatial distribution by county, but more importantly to explore the sociodemographic dimensions of IGWT license plate adoption and non-adoption. While our results generally mirror the sociodemographic findings of social issue-based electoral geography, the imbrication of banal nationalism, the culture wars, and civil religion as materially expressed by the IGWT license plate yields an ideologically different and broader dynamic when compared to culture wars defined by national identity.     

The civic zeitgeist: nationalism and liberal values in the European radical right

This article examines the relationship between nationalism and liberal values and, more specifically, the redefinition of boundaries between national communities and others in the rhetoric of radical right parties in Europe. The aim is to examine the tension between radical right party discourse and the increasing need to shape this discourse in liberal terms. We argue that the radical right parties that successfully operate within the democratic system tend to be those best able to tailor their discourse to the liberal and civic characteristics of national identity so as to present themselves and their ideologies as the true authentic defenders of the nation's unique reputation for democracy, diversity and tolerance. Comparing the success of a number of European radical right parties ranging from the most electorally successful Swiss People's Party, the Dutch Pim Fortuyn List and Party for Freedom to the more mixed French Front National, British National Party and National Democratic Party of Germany we show that the parties that effectively deploy the symbolic resources of national identity through a predominantly voluntaristic prism tend to be the ones that fare better within their respective political systems. In doing so, we challenge the conventional view in the study of nationalism that expects civic values to shield countries from radicalism and extremism.     

Reconfiguring the French nation: Public debates on the Left and national identity

Since the 1980s, neoliberal globalisation has shaped the fate of local and national cultural productions, from movies to music, from entertainment to food. How did French intellectual and political elites respond to this unprecedented challenge? What were the implications for the politics of nationalism and national identity? Two books respond to these questions, although in very different ways – the first directly and the second indirectly. Vincent Martigny's Dire la France explains how a new way of narrating French national identity emerged in the 1980s within an internationally oriented French Left, attentive of the coming challenges of cultural pluralism. Patrick Boucheron's (ed.) Histoire mondiale de la France advances into a more challenging direction by skilfully unsettling the ‘our ancestors the Gauls’ clichéd narrative. French history is thus redefined by moving away from the Frankish/Gallic myth of descent, thereby reconfiguring national identity along new lines. This article identifies how crucial debates on the cultural nation and cultural identity emerged in the wake of the May 1968 uprising, asking how much they contributed to the current shape and meaning of French national identity. It thus reviews what can be described as a new historiographical turn in French history.     

Operationalising national identity: the cases of the Scottish National Party and Frisian National Party

The article sets out to examine the complexity of national identity and to provide a more nuanced understanding of how inclusive and exclusive characteristics of national identity, which appear theoretically contradictory but show empirically considerable compatibility, relate to each other. In order to empirically investigate the nature of national identity, the article develops a multidimensional model – consisting of an ethnic, cultural, territorial and civic dimension. The article explores the understanding of national identity in two specific groups: members of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the United Kingdom and members of the Frisian National Party (FNP) in the Netherlands. The evidence presented is based on data from two full membership studies, and the model is operationalised using a confirmatory factor analyses. The conclusion is that national identity can be conceptualised as consisting of one, or several, base layer(s) that can be ‘topped‐up’ with secondary layers.     

Performing national identities in everyday life: Popular motivations and national indifference in 19th-century Amsterdam

This article demonstrates how and when the nation—whether in the shape of concrete national symbols or as an abstract frame of reference—became relevant to ordinary people. It focuses on the experiences and activities of Amsterdam citizens in the second half of the 19th century. Central to the analysis is the apparent contradiction between ‘banal’ or ‘everyday nationalism’, in which nationalist symbols and rhetoric appeared to successfully reach their audience because of their omnipresence in daily life, and ‘national indifference’, as referring to the absence of national identification among the masses. It argues that in order to overcome the dichotomies between elites and masses and national and non-national performances, we should focus on the popular incentives for national identification, rather than on the ideological content and the (physical or symbolic) borders of the national community.     

Demonstrating for a Kosovo Republic in Switzerland: emotions,national identity and performance

National ceremonies are often designated as a means of crafting or strengthening the ‘national identity’ of the participants, thanks to their potentially emotional effects. This article seeks to examine in greater detail the relationship between emotions, ‘national identity’ and performance. First, it presents evidence from the literature to demonstrate the crucial role played by emotions in the process of national identification, then highlights the conditions responsible for generating these. Second, it explores these issues by adopting an oral history approach in relation to the demonstrations organised by Albanian‐speaking migrants from Yugoslavia in Switzerland in the 1980s. This approach makes it possible to explore issues from the participants' own perspective. The marchers' narratives not only provide a taste of the demonstrations' excitement but also provide clues about the conditions that lead to the emotions they experienced. They are particularly insistent about locating the demonstrations within a much broader life picture.     

‘A sense of where you belong in the world’: national belonging,ontological security and the status of the ethnic majority in England

ABSTRACT. The significance of national forms of imagination and organisation has been increasingly questioned in an era of rapid globalisation. While theoretically stimulating, those who stress the importance of global mobility and sociability sometimes overlook what well‐established, “thick” attachments to the nation offer to disparate individuals, notably in terms of anchoring subjectivity. This first part of this paper explores how debates around belonging in England continue to define certain “ethnic” groups as more or less national, because they embody certain traits, practices or norms. It is then suggested that those who claim, and are treated as if, they belong “without question” may be offered a key sense of material and ontological security that is underpinned through routine practices, symbolic forms and institutional arrangements. The second section looks to evidence this argument by exploring how challenges to this ontological order, which focus on the agency of “perceived” others in relation to everyday spaces, practices and material objects, are debated and resisted.     

Reconstructed nationalism in Taiwan: a politicised and economically driven identity

Since the late 1980s, Taiwan has been engulfed in waves of both democratisation and integration with mainland China. These two waves have pulled identity reconstruction in Taiwan in two different directions. In the process of democratisation, a shift to a majoritarian system encouraged a Taiwanese renaissance on the political platform and consequently led to the deconstruction of Chinese identity. On the other hand, in the 1990s, with the high mobility of capital and people across the Taiwan Strait, close economic ties could have put the brakes on Taiwan independence movements. Hence, this paper uses random coefficient models to explore how the democratic transition and increasing cross‐strait relations brought about psychological and structural mechanisms that motivated people to opt for identity change in Taiwan. It also attempts to investigate how people dealt with the dissonance between rising Taiwanese nationalism and the economic interests that deterred a radical Taiwanese identity.     

The nation in the region: flamenco and canzone napoletana as national icons in modern Spain and Italy (1880–1922)

Although the relationship between music and nationalism has been at the centre of recent cross‐disciplinary research, many areas remain unexplored. Among them are forms of ‘national music’ that nest overlapping identities, functioning simultaneously as vehicles of regional, ethnic, urban, global and diasporic belongings. This article focuses on the national dimension of these multilevel identities, concentrating on the swings and transmigrations between the national and the regional. It compares two Mediterranean traditions which, particularly between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, have served as multilevel identifiers of national and regional belongings: flamenco and canzone napoletana (Neapolitan song). I argue that, besides geographically bounded identities, both genres were constructed as ‘national’ primarily abroad, rather than in their home countries, thus contributing to a theory of the ‘international’ dimension of ‘national’ music. In the case of flamenco, I focus on the irradiation centre of the time, Paris, although the modern notion of musical Spanishness was first associated with national identity in Russia. The canzone consolidated its international position mostly through the Italian diaspora, achieving a much wider reach than is ordinarily thought, both nationally and globally.     

Byron to D'Annunzio: from liberalism to fascism in national poetry, 1815–1920

ABSTRACT. From Byron's death at Missolonghi in 1824 to D'Annunzio's capture of Fiume for Italy in 1919, the nationalism of universal liberalism and independence struggles changed, in literature as in politics, to cruel dictatorial fascism. Byron was followed by a series of idealistic fighter‐poets and poet‐martyrs for national freedom, but international tensions culminating in World War I exposed fully the intolerant, brutal side of nationalism. D'Annunzio, like Byron, both a major poet and charismatic war leader, was a key figure in transforming nineteenth‐century democratic nationalism into twentieth‐century dictatorial fascism. The poet's ‘lyrical dictatorship’ at Fiume (1919–20) inspired Mussolini's seizure of power in 1922, with far‐reaching political consequences. The poet became the dangerous example of a Nietzschean Übermensch, above common morality, predatory and morally irresponsible. This article shows how the meaning of nationalism was partly determined and transformed by poets, illustrating their role as ‘unacknowledged legislators of the world’.     

Rhetoric of unity and cultural diversity in the making of European cultural identity

The fundamental aim of the cultural policy of the European Union (EU) is to emphasize the obvious cultural diversity of Europe, while looking for some underlying common elements which unify the various cultures in Europe. Through these common elements, the EU policy produces ‘an imagined cultural community’ of Europe which is ‘united in diversity’, as one of the slogans of the Union states. This discourse characterizes various documents which are essential to the EU cultural policy, such as the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Agenda for Culture and the EU’s decision on the European Capital of Culture program. In addition, the discourse is applied to the production of cultural events in European Capitals of Culture in practice. On all levels of the EU’s cultural policy, the rhetoric of European cultural identity and its ‘unitedness in diversity’ is related with the ideas and practices of fostering common cultural heritage.     

Religion,secularisation and nationalism in Quebec and the Basque Country: a comparative approach

This article analyses the relationship between religion, secularisation and nationalism in Quebec and the Basque Country using a comparative approach. I will first outline the ethnic‐religious origin of these nationalist movements. Second, I will examine the extent to which the ‘new’ secular and violent nationalism (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna and Front de Libération du Québec) that emerged in the 1960s was fuelled in its origin by a transfer of sacrality. Third, I will address an aspect that has led some theorists to view religion and nationalism as analogous phenomena, in which nationalism is construed as a religion of blood sacrifice. Fourth, I will examine another aspect that leads to this view of religion and nationalism as analogous phenomena, as the latter also provides a framework of transcendent meaning through an imaginary of continuity between the different generations. The article concludes with a series of general considerations on the relations between nationalism, secularisation and religion.