ABSTRACT
All human beings in modern political systems possess multiple political identities, which go far beyond the immediate communities, rooted in family, locality, or workplace, to which they belong. National identities are often among the most significant of these. Both nationalism and a universalised sense of national identity are essentially modern phenomena, although a sense of national identity does not automatically make one a nationalist. Nor does a shared national identity necessarily evoke the same response in different individuals. Two people may both feel German or British; but whereas one may take pride in a perception of past or present national greatness, the other may feel shame and even pain in a perception of past or present injustices perpetrated in the country’s name. National identity, after all, is a complex phenomenon, the product of complex interactions between social, economic, political and cultural histories. Moreover, national identity is rarely a person’s only politically significant identity, even when it is of prime importance to the individual: national identity coexists with identities rooted in attributes such as region, class, religion, gender and sexuality.
