Abstract
These are the opening sentences of Ernest Gellner’s Nations and Nationalism, one of the most famous books on the subject, by one of its leading scholars. Gellner’s words highlight the fact that any study of nationalism and national identities must consider their political significance, and it is the purpose of this chapter so to do. But in this chapter, and indeed this book, we are concerned with nationalist sentiment of a different kind, that which can more usefully be termed national identity. This relates to a more subjective sense of belonging or attachment to a particular nation, one which the individual assumes is shared with other co-nationals. The chapter will assess the degree to which such sentiments are indeed related to political attitudes.
Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent. Nationalism as a sentiment, or as a movement, can best be defined in terms of this principle (Gellner, 1983: 1)
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Bond, R. (2009). Political Attitudes and National Identities in Scotland and England. In: Bechhofer, F., McCrone, D. (eds) National Identity, Nationalism and Constitutional Change. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234147_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230234147_5
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