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| 1 |
ID:
098152
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
In this article I consider why the expected English backlash to the asymmetric UK devolution settlement has not yet materialised. Using a corpus of conversational interviews, I discuss the various ways in which people in England currently understand the relationship between national identity and political entitlement. I conclude that English political quiescence, far from constituting an enigma, is comprehensible in the light of the fact that members of the general public do not usually base their assessments of political legitimacy on calculations of English national self-interest defined in contrast to Scotland. Rather, political issues tend to be judged with reference to principles of equity and procedural justice. English identity is rarely considered legitimate grounds for political voice. Rather, people are inclined to demonstrate a concern to balance the recognition of Scottish rights to national self-determination, with a display of public reason, civility and civic responsibility understood to be normatively incumbent upon the English majority.
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| 2 |
ID:
071642
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| Publication |
2006.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article compares the ways in which references to 'the (British) Empire' were constructed and used in interview accounts of national identity and domestic politics in Scotland and in England. In Scotland, spontaneous accounts of Empire were typically formulated in conjunction with nationalist moral meta-narratives. Respondents variously inferred heroic national character from Scotland's role in Empire, or cast Scottish history as an enduring struggle between progressive forces of nationalism and atavistic forces of Anglo-British colonialism. The construct of Britishness was often seen to derive from, and to be synonymous with, the history of Empire. In England, the Empire story tended to be framed within anti-nationalist meta-narratives. Imperialism was generally understood to represent a product of excessive nationalism, and tales of Empire were used to draw exemplary moral lessons concerning the deficiencies of Anglo-British national character and of the catastrophic consequences of the pursuit of national self-interest more generally. The existence of Britain, and the construct of Britishness, were generally understood to both predate and postdate the history of Empire.
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