Discursive Strategies around 'Community' in Political Propaganda: The Case of Lega Nord

Michael Billig's book Banal Nationalism (1995) set out to expose the covert ways in which established nation-states reinforce their legitimacy by constantly 'flagging' the national identity to their citizens. He terms this kind of nationalism 'banal', in contrast with more obvious 'hot' nationalist movements. This article applies Billig's theory of 'banal nationalism' not to an established nation-state but to present-day Catalonia, an 'historic nation' which now enjoys a large measure of autonomy. The article argues that in Catalonia, forms of 'banal nationalism' are generated by Catalan institutions, exist in competition with the 'banal nationalism' of the Spanish State, and might be partly responsible for the 'cooling' of Catalanism which is currently worrying some Catalanists.     

New Labour's appropriation of the concept of community: a critique

This article analyses the ways in which ‘community’,one of the most important yet ill-defined concepts in SocialSciences, has been ‘appropriated’ in the discourseof the UK's New Labour government. It argues that the highlystrategic ways in which the term is used leads to associatedmeanings that neglect the intrinsically complex nature of theconcept and risk essentializing group identities, thus adverselyaffecting the most deprived sections of society.