The Rhetoric of Nationalism

This paper assesses the contribution of Billig's Banal Nationalism arguing that it moved us beyond the dichotomies of civic versus ethnic and patriotism versus nationalism to focus attention on the omnipresence of nations and the question of when they are flagged and unflagged. In acknowledging the importance of these insights, it is also suggested that an undue focus on ideology, interests and the political may not do justice to the strength of what might be better called the national or nationalist imaginary. The idea of social imaginaries speaks to a curious flatness to many accounts of everyday nationalism: they limit themselves to representations, not developing the way in which these representations are embedded and reproduced in action. Finally, it is suggested that viewing nationalism as always bad obscures the importance of nationalism to some much more positive projects, including economic redistribution and social welfare.