ABSTRACT
With relatively few exceptions, people identify with their ‘nation’, that is they think of themselves as French, or Korean, or Irish, or Thai, or whatever. The intensity of national identity may vary from individual to individual. Within any given state, the object of ‘national’ identification may be contested and this contestation may lead ultimately to the formation of a new nation-state or, at a minimum, to special institutional arrangements providing either sub-state autonomy or guaranteed participation in governance for the dissenting group. It is also true that national identity is not the only collective identification that people espouse; people may identify with their family, with their locality, with their ethnic group, with their social class, with their religion, or with one or more groups dedicated to various beliefs or causes. Despite these necessary qualifications, national identity not only persists but possesses an institutionalised salience that makes it a potentially important factor in national and international politics and, in particular, in the politics of globalisation.
