ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of the nation-state in relation to music policy and constructions of national identity in Australian, New Zealand and Scottish popular music. This involves examining how cultural/music policy is drafted to serve national projects, the national imaginings of each case study that in turn influence cultures and cultural policy. Global interdependence of communication technologies, institutions, events and communities is the central theme in all the many competing definitions of globalisation. The weight of globalisation theory and forces tend to obscure the ways in which cultural policy continues to promote a historical consensus of national characteristics through interrelated media and music policies. These are examined in this chapter as they are not just naked policy instruments of cultural protection, but also as more complex forms of local/national/global debates.
