State and Nation in the United Kingdom

State and Nation in the United Kingdom PDF Author: Michael Keating
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019884137X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
The United Kingdom has often been seen as a unitary nation-state. This book argues that it should be understood as a plurinational union in which the key elements of demos, telos, and ethos are contested. Except in the mid-twentieth century, its territorial boundaries have been contested and the matter of sovereignty has never definitely been settled. Since the end of the twentieth century, devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland has made this more apparent. With the weakening of the British national project, tensions between the centre and the peripheral nations have grown, greatly exacerbated by Brexit. Eurosceptics have long argued that membership of the European Union is inconsistent with the sovereignty of the British people and Parliament. On another reading, however, both the UK and the EU are plurinational unions and highly compatible. The EU, indeed, served as an important external support system for the devolution settlement. Brexit destabilizes it. Unionism historically served as a doctrine and a set of practices seeking to reconcile a unitary state with a plurinational reality. Since devolution, it has struggled to come to terms with the new constitutional reality or embrace the idea of shared sovereignty. The Union is under increasing strain but there is no simple way of resolving these strains, either by secession of the component nations, or a return to the unitary state. The peoples of these islands need to find new constitutional concepts for living together in a world in which traditional ideas of national sovereignty have lost their relevance.

State and Nation in the United Kingdom

State and Nation in the United Kingdom PDF Author: Michael Keating
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019884137X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
The United Kingdom has often been seen as a unitary nation-state. This book argues that it should be understood as a plurinational union in which the key elements of demos, telos, and ethos are contested. Except in the mid-twentieth century, its territorial boundaries have been contested and the matter of sovereignty has never definitely been settled. Since the end of the twentieth century, devolution to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland has made this more apparent. With the weakening of the British national project, tensions between the centre and the peripheral nations have grown, greatly exacerbated by Brexit. Eurosceptics have long argued that membership of the European Union is inconsistent with the sovereignty of the British people and Parliament. On another reading, however, both the UK and the EU are plurinational unions and highly compatible. The EU, indeed, served as an important external support system for the devolution settlement. Brexit destabilizes it. Unionism historically served as a doctrine and a set of practices seeking to reconcile a unitary state with a plurinational reality. Since devolution, it has struggled to come to terms with the new constitutional reality or embrace the idea of shared sovereignty. The Union is under increasing strain but there is no simple way of resolving these strains, either by secession of the component nations, or a return to the unitary state. The peoples of these islands need to find new constitutional concepts for living together in a world in which traditional ideas of national sovereignty have lost their relevance.

Union and Unionisms

Union and Unionisms PDF Author: Colin Kidd
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521880572
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
A major survey of Scotland's dominant ideology over the past three centuries by one of its leading historians.

Cultural Identity in British Musical Theatre, 1890–1939

Cultural Identity in British Musical Theatre, 1890–1939 PDF Author: Ben Macpherson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137598077
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
This book examines the performance of ‘Britishness’ on the musical stage. Covering a tumultuous period in British history, it offers a fresh look at the vitality and centrality of the musical stage, as a global phenomenon in late-Victorian popular culture and beyond. Through a re-examination of over fifty archival play-scripts, the book comprises seven interconnected stories told in two parts. Part One focuses on domestic and personal identities of ‘Britishness’, and how implicit anxieties and contradictions of nationhood, class and gender were staged as part of the popular cultural condition. Broadening in scope, Part Two offers a revisionary reading of Empire and Otherness on the musical stage, and concludes with a consideration of the Great War and the interwar period, as musical theatre performed a nostalgia for a particular kind of ‘Britishness’, reflecting the anxieties of a nation in decline.

Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 1919-1939

Gender and Political Identities in Scotland, 1919-1939 PDF Author: Annmarie Hughes
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748641866
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This work offers a unique contribution to gender and Scottish history breaking new ground on several fronts: there is no history of inter-war women in Scotland, very little labour or popular political history and virtually nothing published on women, the home and family. This book is a history of women in the period which integrates class and gender history as well as linking the public and private spheres. Using a gendered approach to history it transforms and shifts our knowledge of the Scottish past, unearthing the previously unexplored role which women played in inter-war socialist politics, the General Strike and popular political protest. It re-evaluates these areas and demonstrates the ways in which gender shaped the experience of class and class struggle. Importantly, the book also explores the links between the public and private spheres and addresses the concept of masculinity as well as femininity and pays particular reference to domestic violence. The strength of the book is the ways in which it illuminates the complex interconnections of culture and economic and social structure. Although the research is based on Scottish evidence, it also uses material to address key debates in gender history and labour history which have wider relevance and will appeal to gender historians, labour historians and social and cultural historians as well as social scientists.

Wales in England, 1914-1945

Wales in England, 1914-1945 PDF Author: Wendy Ugolini
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198863276
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
The first cultural history of English Welsh duality - an identification with two constituent nations at once - that explores how 'Welshness' was imagined, performed, and mobilised in England during and between the two world wars.

The BBC and national identity in Britain, 1922–53

The BBC and national identity in Britain, 1922–53 PDF Author: Thomas Hajkowski
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1847797415
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 410

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Book Description
Examining the ways in which the BBC constructed and disseminated British national identity during the second quarter of the twentieth century, this book is the first study that focuses in a comprehensive way on how the BBC, through its radio programs, tried to represent what it meant to be British. The BBC and national identity in Britain offers a revision of histories of regional broadcasting in Britain that interpret it as a form of cultural imperialism. The regional organization of the BBC, and the news and creative programming designed specifically for regional listeners, reinforced the cultural and historical distinctiveness of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The BBC anticipated, and perhaps encouraged, the development of the hybrid “dual identities” characteristic of contemporary Britain. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of nationalism and national identity, British imperialism, mass media and media history, and the “four nations” approach to British history.

The State of the Union

The State of the Union PDF Author: Jørgen Sevaldsen
Publisher: Museum Tusculanum Press
ISBN: 9788763507028
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This special issue of ANGLES marks the three hundredth anniversary of the Union of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England under the name of the Kingdom of Great Britain.

The Oxford Handbook of British Politics

The Oxford Handbook of British Politics PDF Author: Matthew Flinders
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191570443
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1008

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Book Description
The study of British politics has been reinvigorated in recent years as a generation of new scholars seeks to build-upon a distinct disciplinary heritage while also exploring new empirical territory and finds much support and encouragement from previous generations in forging new grounds in relation to theory and methods. It is in this context that The Oxford Handbook of British Politics has been conceived. The central ambition of the Handbook is not just to illustrate both the breadth and depth of scholarship that is to be found within the field. It also seeks to demonstrate the vibrancy and critical self-reflection that has cultivated a much sharper and engaging, and notably less insular, approach to the terrain it seeks to explore and understand. In this emphasis on critical engagement, disciplinary evolution, and a commitment to shaping rather than re-stating the discipline The Oxford Handbook of British Politics is consciously distinctive. In showcasing the diversity now found in the analysis of British politics, the Handbook is built upon three foundations. The first principle that underpins the volume is a broad understanding of 'the political'. It covers a much broader range of topics, themes and issues than would commonly be found within a book on British politics. This emphasis on an inclusive approach also characterises the second principle that has shaped this collection - namely, diversity in relation to commissioned authors. The final principle focuses on the distinctiveness of the study of British politics. Each chapter seeks to reflect on what is distinctive- both in terms of the empirical nature of the issue of concern, and the theories and methods that have been deployed to unravel the nature and causes of the debate. The result is a unique volume that: draws-upon the intellectual strengths of the study of British politics; reflects the innate diversity and inclusiveness of the discipline; isolates certain distinctive issues and then reflects on their broader international relevance; and finally looks to the future by pointing towards emerging or overlooked areas of research.

The Path to Devolution and Change

The Path to Devolution and Change PDF Author: David Stewart
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0857715585
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Margaret Thatcher's premiership from 1979 to 1990 had a profound impact on Scotland. David Stewart analyzes the impact of this period of Conservative government on Scotland, while examining the extent to which Conservative policy under Thatcher represented a break from the 'post-war consensus' in British politics. Focusing on the origins and impact of the poll tax, the campaign to save Ravenscraig steelworks, the sharpening of the North/South divide, the 1984/85 miners' strike, and the balance of power within Scottish civil society, he makes substantial contributions to the debates surrounding the decline of Scottish Unionism, the roots of Scottish devolution, the legacy of Thatcherism, and the changing British constitution.

Huw T. Edwards

Huw T. Edwards PDF Author: Paul Ward
Publisher: University of Wales Press
ISBN: 0708323294
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 196

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Book Description
Huw T. Edwards was a prominent Welsh- (and English-) speaking public figure in twentieth-century Welsh society. In the 1950s he was known as 'the unofficial Prime Minister of Wales' because of his chairmanship of the Council of Wales. In 1958 Edwards resigned from the Council of Wales because the Conservative government refused to create the post of Secretary of State for Wales. In 1959 he also resigned from the Labour Party, after 50 years membership. Again, his reasons reflected a growing sense of Welsh nationalism. He had become increasingly interested in Welsh cultural and political issues and had encouraged his union to support of Coleg Harlech and the National Eisteddfod. On leaving Labour, Edwards joined Plaid Cymru. Edwards's political life, therefore, seems to reinforce the notion of fragmentation of United Kingdom identities and their replacement by distinct and politically ambitious national identities in Wales. This book suggests that close examination of Edwards political life reveals a more complex situation. Edwards's resignation from Labour was about his political desires for Wales but equally entailed a rejection of the rightward shift in British Labour politics being led by Hugh Gaitskell. Edwards's protest can therefore be viewed from the perspective of the British left as well as Welsh nationalism. Hence in 1965 Edwards rejoined Labour, because the accession of Harold Wilson to the Labour leadership and government resulted in a radicalisation of the party alongside recognition of Welsh nationhood with the establishment of a Welsh Secretary of State and a Welsh Office.