Introduction

The previous two chapters were concerned with elite uses of nationalism as seen in election manifestos, demonstrating, through several levels of content and textual analysis, that these commonplace political documents do not present a straightforward civic and pluralistic articulation of nationalism and national identity. These documents speak from the elite of mainstream political parties to the mass electoral audience. But there must be two sides to any politics of nationalism as democratic elites govern only through popular consent and any movement lacking popular support either withers or remains a marginal force, as the various histories of the Scottish Nationalist movements illustrate (for example Hanham 1969; Lynch 2002). Nationalism as a political force gains its strength from the number of adherents and nationalist identifiers. Bond and Rosie, looking at the constituent national parts of the UK, state that ‘identity is an important source of legitimacy for the new political institutions in the UK’ (Bond and Rosie 2010: 87). Similarly, Leith has argued that ‘a sense of nation and national identity is important to individuals within Scotland’ and ‘the nation, as portrayed by the political system, serves to connect individuals to a sense of national identity for political purposes’ (Leith 2010: 298-9). We have shown that, whatever the political hue of Scottish parties, unionists and Nationalists alike frame many of their policies in the language of national identity. As such, nationalism as a political force in Scottish politics requires an understanding of the content or criteria of national identity within Scotland, at the elite and mass levels, and, of course, of whether there is a correspondence between the two.