The debate about British Identity has been prominently featured in recent years as a public concern. The foundation of British Identity was based on the act of union in 1801 between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that created Great Britain. Heath and Roberts describe this identity as “a relatively recent construct and was gradually superimposed on earlier national identities of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish” (2008:4). The four nations were unified mainly because of the political and economic project of the British Empire that developed a shared agenda and The Second World War which melted the distinctive differences between the constituent nations (Ward, 2004). According to Colley, the interests that unified the nations do not exist and even if they do” they are less distinctive” (1992). Although there is identification with Britishness, it is noticeable that Britons hold a stronger allegiance to their primary nation. The British Identity is decreasing as many writers suggested, and this is due to many different trends and influences such as globalization, immigration and communication (Heath and Roberts, 2008). This essay highlights some of the reasons of the decline in the British national identity and the rise of the consentient nation’s sentiment. This is approached by firstly considering the internal factors of the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, and secondly the external factor of immigration and will analyze the relationship between age and identification with a nation.
In their book, Smith and Wistrich state that Britain sensed a problem in the identity once there has been devolution of power to Scotland and Wales in 1998 (2009). It maybe true that Scots and Welsh feel more attached to their own na...
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.... According to Pippa Norris, an individual's degree of nationalism is constructed in a young age and it is based on “the international context of the time “(stone and Muir, 2007:5), for example, citizens who were born in the 1940s in the time of the World War II will have a stronger sense of Britishness than the ones born in the time of globalization and conflicts over the EU. The younger generations identify less with Britain than their parents or grandparents. The Home Office Citizenship Survey consider age to be the most powerful driver of “belonging to Britain” and the survey show that people over 75 years old feel the strongest identification with Britain (Heath and Roberts, 2008). If the same trend of a weak national allegiance among younger generations remains in the upcoming years, the British national identity will sure be weakened (Stone and Muir, 2007).
J. Hoppit , 1999 - Parliaments, Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660-1850 – Manchester university Press Publishing – Accessed via: http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/ - Quote from Daniel Defoe.
Guiberneau, Monsterrat. “National Identity, Devolution and Seccession in Canada, Britain and Spain.” Nations and Nationalism 12, no. 1 (2006): 51-76.
McClintock, Ann. “No Longer in a Future Heaven: Nationalism, Gender and Race”. In: G. Eley e.a. (eds), Becoming national. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 1996. 259-284
As is evidenced in the UK’s devolved unitary system, the Canadian federation and the European Union, each model aims to protect regional diversity and autonomy within it’s limitations, though the degree to which autonomy is granted creates a natural tension between unity and the desire for subsidiarity and self-determination. In devolution, asymmetrical federalism and the constitutional framework of a confederation there is the ability to manage diversity, discourage secession, and ensure stability, but with each of these comes the danger of divisive encouragement of difference. It is up to the individual governments in question then, how to best manage diversity and unity. As phrased by George Anderson, perhaps “stability can be enhanced if the culture goes beyond mere tolerance of diversity to the active embrace of diversity as part of what defines the country and gives it it's value. Institutional arrangements can hep societies better manage their conflicts, but institutions alone are not enough…” Perhaps the answer to encouraging national unity is not then found in the model, but in the contingencies of identity and
British citizens were the preferred immigrants because they embodied the ideal citizen of the nation-state (white, Anglo-Saxon). It was a known fact that the Canadian government “would seek only those vigorous northern races who were culturally sound and who could quickly conform to the norms of Anglo-Canadian life” (Avery 93). This racial advantage allowed them much power to influence work, social and political life” (Avery 95).
For more than three hundred years, Scotland has been an active member of a union with Wales, England and Northern Ireland but recently this partnership has come under threat due to nationalist views from a group of deluded self-serving failed councillors better known as the SNP. The ideals of these individuals threaten the very fabric of this hub of culture and enterprise that we know and love as Scotland. With the tricentennial anniversary of union, the idea of Scottish independence has again come up for fierce debate. How, I ask myself, did Alex Salmond and his nationalist cronies manage to concoct such a specious solution to Scotland's problems? A question easily answered: on the basis of false, misinterpreted and corrupt data.
Print. The. national identity, n. OED Online. Oxford University Press, March 2014. Web. The Web.
payment for our country, free trade. All in all we have our own government, our
Throughout all of history, the British Empire has been an integral part to almost every country, whether they were invaded or aided by the British. After the American Revolution, people of other countries realized that their independence was achievable causing a rift in power. The British Empire began its decline from a once great empire and superpower to a smaller country with the need to look to foreign country allies. In the early 1900’s, many British citizens were divided with their ideals. Some believed it was time to adopt the ideal of isolationism and become self-reliant, while others believed England should rely on foreign aid. Joseph Chamberlain, a conservative politician during those times, took it upon himself to become a voice for
The Irish and British governments fought for many years over the ownership of Northern Ireland. Britain had main control over Northern Ireland, and Ireland did not think that was fair. Be...
Not a unified and separate country until 1921, Northern Ireland has had cultural, financial, and economic that makes it stand affront from the rest of the Emerald Isles. With its close proximity to England and the immigration all through the 1600s of English and Scottish, Northern Ireland has become more anglicized th...
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) shocked the world when the majority unexpectedly voted to end a 43-year run in the European Union (EU). Dumbstruck, with jaws most likely agape, UK leaders, companies, and investors “have been clamoring for greater clarity about how Brexit will take effect” (Petfroll). The Brexit campaign, riddled with slogans like “Britain First” and “Believe in Britain,” made the vote appear to be more about British nationalism and obscure bureaucracy than a simple should “Should I stay or should I go?” referendum, with an ultimate and untimely victory for British nationalism. This isolationist trend soon manifested itself once again when, a little over a year later, the Americans, refusing to be outdone by the former
This creates debates about which factors scholars should focus on for any given form of nationalism. Should scholars take a primordialist approach and focus on kinship ties, myths of ancestry, and instinctual loyalty? Or, should scholars take a situationalist approach focus upon changing economic and political factors which influence the rational decisions of individuals? Or, should scholars study nationalism as an ideology and explain the role of the state as an ideological enforcer and the role nationalism plays in securing the insecure masses? In certain cases people may think it is adequate to take all of the separate theories into considerations, mixing primordialist ideas of instinctual loyalty and myths of homeland with constructivist ideas of constructed national identity. Others argue that it is necessary to not combine the three separate approaches but to study each one to attempt to figure out which one can provide the deeper understanding. This means that when analyzing nationalism, the frameworks for nationalism are always being compared and contrasted to figure out which one can offer a better and deeper understanding; alluding to nationalist theories having different utilities in separate situations. However, when discussions of nationalism mix primordialist ideas of instinctual loyalty, situationalist ideas of rational interest and constructivist ideas
Salazar, J.M., 1998, ‘Social identity and national identity’, in Worchel, S., Morales, J.F., Páez, D., Deschamps, J.-C. (Eds.), Social Identity, International Perspectives. Sage, London.
To commence this discussion, it is first essential to establish an understanding surrounding the role of language in relation to national identity. Theoretically, the more power language has in this relation, the more powerful language planning may be when creating a national identity. However, the role language plays in this respect is somewhat problematic to define and has proven to be a debatable topic among nationalists, sociologists and sociolinguists. For instance, May demonstrates that ‘sociological commentators, unlike sociolinguists, have generally been loath to apportion a prominent role to language in the explanation of minority ethnic and national identity claims’ (2001: 8). Consequently emulating distaste from sociologists to credit language with significant power in a national identity. In a similar sense, de Vries notes that, in relation to a language community, ‘social scientists have generally ignored the systemic properties of language’ (1991: 39), thus, concurrently suggesting with May, a disagreement from the social sciences over the role of language in terms of identity and national identity. Similarly, circa the French revolution, the concept