'A Man's a Man for A' That'? Constructions of the civic Nation in the rhetoric of the Scottish Defence League and the Scottish National Party
R.S. Sutherland
MSc Human Geography
Supervisor: Dr. J. Penrose.
Abstract This thesis explores the deployment of constructions of the civic nation in the discourses of two Scottish nationalist organisations with divergent agendas - The Scottish National Party (SNP) and the Scottish Defence League (SDL). The SNP is a democratically elected secessionist party which claims to propound a 'wholly civic' nationalism, whilst the SDL represents an ethnic exclusivist and xenophobic form of nationalism.
I draw on two key theories in the present work: Halikiopoulou et al's (2013) theory of the 'civic zeitgeist', which argues that even far-right ethnic nationalists must incorporate civic tropes in pursuit of legitimacy; and Billig's (1995) seminal theory of 'banal nationalism', which states that the nation is reproduced daily in banal ways. Both the SDL and the SNP must deploy constructions of the civic nation in order to maintain legitimacy, even whilst each relies on the ethnic roots of the nation to maintain relevance. By conflating nation and state, and making ambiguous reference to 'the people of Scotland' and 'the Scottish people', the SNP are able to appeal to so-called 'old' and 'new' Scots with a single discourse. The SDL's deployment of civic tropes more often serves to position illiberal Muslims as the 'other', and thus incompatible with liberal Scottish values.
Following my theoretical and empirical engagement with the concept of the civic nation, I argue that it is inherently problematic. What is often referred to as the civic/ethnic dichotomy is perhaps better understood as a strategically deployed dialectic which nationalist movements may draw upon in a variety of civic/ethnic configurations. The malleability of the civic nation and its deployment by nationalists with such divergent agendas leads me to question its conceptual and empirical value. I argue here that the ethnic underscoring of both organisations' constructions of the civic nation seriously undermines the purported inclusivity and voluntarism of their respective projects.
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