Political Discourse and National Identity in Scotland

Uses manifesto analysis to measure political nationalism in Scotland. Murray Stewart Leith and Daniel P. J. Soule explore the importance of groups, concepts and events such as the SNP and devolution, unionism, the political elite, political and public discourse, inclusion and exclusion, enforced nationalism, and birth, race and citizenship to nationalist feeling in Scotland. The authors set the Modernist view of Scottish nationalism against the work of Gellner, Anderson and Billig to create their own ‘mixed method’ of evaluating nationalism. This title presents a detailed consideration of the language used within the political and nationalist arena in Scotland. It compares a variety of attitudes and opinions held within Scotland from the political elite to the masses. It introduces a new method for measuring political nationalism using manifesto analysis.