At the heart and in the margins: Discursive construction of British national identity in relation to the EU in British parliamentary debates from 1973 to 2015

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 412-431
Author(s):  
Jenni Riihimäki
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
The Eu

scholarly journals CONSTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH NATIONAL IDENTITY IN RELATION TO BREXIT: EVOLUTION OF THE DISCOURSE OF THE PRIME MINISTERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-118
Author(s):  
I.V. Kazakov ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
Identity Transformation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Main Method ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Parliamentary Debates ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Eu

The discursive reality of Brexit had its effects on the discourse of the British Conservative Party which is important as the latter plays a key role in the process of making political decisions. The article discusses the components of the British national identity linked with the UK's membership in the European Union and Brexit as a political process. The UK's case is unique as it allows us to trace the identity transformation during the process of withdrawal from this integration group. The author chooses the constructivist approach and post-positivist discourse analysis as the main method. The paper studies the speeches of conservative politicians and parliamentary debates to analyze the changes in the discourse of the Conservative Party during the terms of the UK’s last three prime ministers. The discursive layers are highlighted: basic concepts, basic political orientations and extratextual ideological constructions used by conservative politicians to construct reality. The author traces the transformation of ideological constructions of the conservative party's discourse and consecutive changes in the significance of individual elements of the British national identity in the discourse. The paper examines relations between British and European identities, between the images of Britain and the EU in the discourse of British conservatives.

scholarly journals European Integration as a Determinant Factor of Macedonian National Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-218
Author(s):  
Anastasia Salavatova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
National Level ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
National Narrative ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
European Standards ◽  
European Periphery ◽  
Determinant Factor ◽  
The Eu

The concept of the EU normative power implies transformation challenges which project norms on the national level of European periphery. The research aims to assess extent the EU requirements contradict the Macedonian national identity and determine changes that either are perceived as imposed or reflect implicit European norms. Depending on the level of the EU engagement europeanization of national identity takes different forms ranging from institutional changes with the European mediators’ assistance (conflict settlement, the name issue) to the search of alternative national legitimation models apart from socialist Yugoslavia. Conditionality of explicit requirements that refer to disputes with neighbouring countries is integrated into national narrative in the form of sacrifice, which still is perceived as external pressure. Implicit norms like decommunization are more difficult to identify but imply a long-term deconstruction of national identity. Such deconstruction could provide not just prospects for the future of the Macedonian nation and state but allows to select and describe implicit European norms that are disseminated into the periphery. The article outlines conditionality between European standards and requirements and transformations in basic principles of Macedonian national identity.

‘I Certainly Don't Want People like That Here’: The Discursive Construction of ‘Asylum Seekers’

2003 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Saxton
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Asylum Seekers ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Nationalist Discourse ◽  
John Howard

In October 2001, it was alleged that asylum seekers had thrown their children overboard in order to manipulate the Australian Navy to pick them up and take them to Australian territory. In response to this incident, Prime Minister John Howard announced on radio 3LO: ‘I certainly don't want people like that here.’ (Mares, 2002: 135) A discursive approach is adopted in this paper to examine how asylum seekers have been constructed to be ‘people like that’ in the print media. The analysis demonstrates that asylum seekers have been represented as illegal, non-genuine and threatening in these texts. These representations were employed within nationalist discourse to legitimate the government's actions and public opinion concerning asylum seekers and to manage the delicate issue of national identity. The discursive management of the collective identity of asylum seekers by the dominant culture to construct a specific social reality is discussed and illustrated.

“Ruled Britannia”: Metaphorical Construction of the EU as Enemy in UKIP Campaign Posters

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 188-209
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Ross ◽  
Aditi Bhatia
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Social Impact ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Exit Strategy ◽  
The Past ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Eu

The sweeping tide of populism across the globe has given rise to isolationist sentiments that call for the closing of national borders and a return to nativist roots. This has been most evident in Britain in terms of the controversial vote to exit the European Union (EU) during the 2016 referendum (to Leave or Remain) and more recently with the lead up to a general election and mounting pressure on the government to implement an exit strategy. The most vocal proponent of the “leave” movement was the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), reframing the debate on EU membership in terms of invasion and oppression. This paper focuses on precisely this discursive construction of the EU by analyzing UKIP campaign posters through application of Bhatia’s Discourse of Illusion framework on three levels: historicity (use of the past to justify the present or predict the future), linguistic and semiotic action (subjective conceptualizations of reality made apparent through metaphorical rhetoric), and degree of social impact (emergence of delineating categories through ideological narrative).

scholarly journals European but not European enough: An explanation for Brexit

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noah Carl ◽  
James Dennison ◽  
Geoffrey Evans
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Member State ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Weak Sense ◽  
European Identity ◽  
Member States ◽  
Eu Countries ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Measures Of Inequality ◽  
The Eu

To date, most accounts of the UK’s vote to leave the EU have focussed on explaining variation across individuals and constituencies within the UK. In this article, we attempt to answer a different question, namely ‘Why was it the UK that voted to leave, rather than any other member state?’. We show that the UK has long been one of the most Eurosceptic countries in the EU, which we argue can be partly explained by Britons’ comparatively weak sense of European identity. We also show that existing explanations of the UK’s vote to leave cannot account for Britons’ long-standing Euroscepticism: the UK scores lower than many other member states on measures of inequality/austerity, the ‘losers of globalisation’ and authoritarian values, and some of these measures are not even correlated with Euroscepticism across member states. In addition, we show that the positive association between national identity and Euroscepticism is stronger in the UK than in most other EU countries. Overall, we conclude that Britons’ weak sense of European identity was a key contributor to the Brexit vote.

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