Towards a ‘civic’ narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party

Halikiopoulou, Daphne and Vasilopoulou, Sofia (2010) Towards a ‘civic’ narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party. Political Quarterly, 81 (4). pp. 583-592. ISSN 0032-3179

Preview

PDF Download (405kB) | Preview

Abstract

This article examines the ways in which the BNP utilises the elements of British national identity in its discourse and argues that, during Griffin's leadership, the party has made a discursive choice to shift the emphasis from an ethnic to a civic narrative. We put forward two hypotheses, 1: the modernisation of the discourse of extreme right parties in the British context is likely to be related to the adoption of a predominantly civic narrative and 2: in the context of British party competition the BNP is likely to converge towards UKIP, drawing upon elements of its perceived winning formula, i.e. a predominantly civic rhetoric of national identity. We proceed to empirically test our hypotheses by conducting a twofold comparison. First, we compare the BNP's discourse pre- and post-1999 showing the BNP's progressive adoption of a civic narrative; and second the BNP's post-1999 discourse to that of UKIP in order to illustrate their similarities in terms of civic values.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.wiley.com/bw/journal.asp?ref=0032-3179
Additional Information:	© 2010 the authors
Divisions:	Government
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Date Deposited:	02 Dec 2010 10:39
Last Modified:	05 Jan 2024 08:54
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/30140

Actions (login required)

View Item