Nationhood remains a 'durable' political concept primarily due to its intimacy with the ongoing process of modernity and its focus on human agency. As a result of this relationship, cultural analysis is uniquely placed to make observations about its past present and future.
Against the 'contemporary' limits of global capitalism, and the pre-given myths of nationalism, an alternative politics may emerge from the collective construction of 'time'.
Neither Britain nor its constituent countries show any sign of wanting to abandon the nation for "global citizenship". The task now is to recognise and accept the specialness rather than superiority that people associate with their home nation, and forge a broad yet cohesive national story.
The emergence of the nation-state as the central unit of political decision making was the result of a series of technological advances. With the rise of 'information technology' - and new methods of analysing social complexity - its methods of operation may now be radically decentralised.
Recent calls for 'renewed' identities in the UK mean little so long as they fail to assess the role of the state in a multicultural society. Certainly, a fundamental recognition is needed: that it is easier to be a global citizen when you are confident in the fulfilment of your rights as a nationa
The nostalgic appeal to ‘the spirit of 45’ is embedded in a long myth of ‘public services’ propagated by the culture of Britain’s unwritten constitution.
The destructive power of neoliberal globalization has prompted renewed interest in nationalism on the left. But the legacies of empire and the political nature of the neoliberal project itself suggest that enthusiasm for English nationalism needs to be tempered with a sober analysis of its uninten
Monolithic accounts of national identity need to make way for a form of analysis capable of embracing the ambiguity and contradictions through which all ideas of community are created. In a context of new global patterns of immigration this task is central to the economic and political struggles o
While states attempt to assert their relevance in a global age through both multiculturalism and top-down nationalism, new models of identity and strategies of participation need to be developed to deal with the co-existing phenomena of national experience and cosmopolitanism.
For advocates of globalisation, the 'frontier' is often presented as an obstacle to universal freedom. But as the anti-democratic implications of this argument are increasingly evident, what if the solution to managing power is not fewer borders but more?
What if London is drawing closer to New York and Dubai, but further away from Gloucestershire? Or still more specifically: the stylish bits of London closer to fashionable Manhattan, but further from Hackney and Brixton?
