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This chapter considers the responses of liberal nationalist opinion to the debacle of the 1959 Westminster election. It looks at the establishment of National Unity and its attempts to promote nationalism as a broader progressive secular movement which would reach out to Protestants. The clash between these reformers and the Nationalist Party orthodoxy is examined. The chapter also discusses the changed political context of the 1960s, both in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which gave grounds for National Unity’s increased optimism that a new era of political modernisation was possible. It argues that despite the novelty of the moderate language of the respective premiers North and South (Capt Terrence O’Neill and Sean Lemass) the potential to displace the more traditionally entrenched and regressive positions of Irish Nationalism and Ulster Unionism was less likely than it appeared. It concludes that by the mid-1960s the Nationalist Party was faced with a rising tide of disillusioned young Catholic professionals who were increasingly vocal in their criticism of the Party’s failed and dated strategies.

The national unity discourse has been the most important discourse through which Muslim-Christian relations are represented and negotiated in modern Egypt. Essential ingredients in the representation of the unity of Muslims and Christians as one nation are historical narratives that celebrate Muslim-Christian harmony and disguise conflicts and hierarchies, as well as the flexibly applied concept of a perennial Egyptian national character. In the Mubarak era, the increasing Muslim bias in conventional narratives, such as those promoted by government media and education, led to the rise of Coptic counter-narratives in which the Copts are portrayed as the only true and authentic Egyptians. This explains why national identity and history became such divisive issues and why critical observers describe the existing public rituals of national unity as hollow and phony.

This chapter charts the surge in criticism of the Nationalist Party hierarchy in the face of repeated Party failures. It identifies the key role played by National Unity, and by those on the left of the Nationalist Party, in organising the Maghery Convention at which demands for a reinvigorated and united Nationalist political organization resulted in the establishment of the National Political Front, an umbrella body representative of the broad spectrum of constitutional nationalist opinion. The chapter details the successful counter-manoeuvring by some elements of the Party’s traditionalist wing, represented by Eddie McAteer, to resist pressures from the liberals, represented by Paddy Gormley, to reconfigure the Party on the centre-left of the political spectrum. The chapter also considers the Lemass-O’Neill meeting in Belfast in 1964 and its role in determining the Nationalist Party’s decision to accept, for the first time, the role of official Opposition at Stormont. Continued intra-Party divisions over the future direction of the Party in the aftermath of Lemass-O’Neill are discussed. Finally, the chapter looks at the disintegration and decline of the Nationalist Party in the context of a failing political strategy and the onset of inter-communal sectarian violence.

The chapter contends that trade unions can be conceptualized as actors who contribute to the reproduction of nationalism through the ‘banal’ everyday framing of concerns and aspirations in terms that reflect traditional rhetoric of nationalist ideology. Following Anthony Smith's influential definition, nationalist ideology is understood as embodying a set of three core ideals, namely national identity, autonomy and unity. The chapter's main argument is that internationalization – as exemplified in the cases of Ford and General Motors – can paradoxically reinforce rather than diminish the significance of such banal nationalist rhetoric.

This chapter explores the ways in which Russian elites sought to find a unifying idea and national identity for Russians after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Instead of forging a positive national idea, Putinism sought to create national unity by identifying enemies, both inside the country and externally. The West became the existential enemy for conservatives in the Kremlin, and liberal forces inside Russia were labelled a ‘fifth column’. This enemy discourse created a short-lived “Crimean consensus” after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, but this common feeling soon faded. After two decades of Putinism, the friend-enemy discourse no longer united Russians nor overcame deep-rooted social, political and economic cleavages in society.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book offers an ethnographic study of the Sudanese experience with the Islamic state from its revolutionary establishment in 1989 to the present, with a particular focus on the years of National Unity, 2005–11, when the author lived in Sudan for a prolonged period of time. The period of National Unity between the ruling National Congress Party and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, representing the South, was particularly interesting because it constituted perhaps the first time since coming to power that the Islamists were compelled to grapple with religious pluralism as they sought to construct a state that did not give up on its Islamic aspirations, but might also appeal to non-Muslims.

The leading academic literature on Rwanda tends to focus on the Hutu-Tutsi dichotomy, either directly or indirectly, thus resigning the historical narratives of the Twa to a footnote, permanently buried in history. Based on interviews and focus groups, as well as personal testimony provided by three Twa civil society leaders, this chapter explores Twa perceptions and experiences of national unity and reconciliation during the post-genocide period. As a component of this, our chapter examines popular perceptions of the Historically Marginalized Peoples (HMP) label, a quasi-legal category generally associated with the Twa, within the broader framework of the government's unity-building and reconciliation campaign. This snapshot of Twa interactions with government policy and practice shows that Twa often feel excluded from efforts to foster national pride, unity and reconciliation. Equally, the majority of Twa object to the use of the HMP label, and many emphasize the continued relevance of Twa identity and culture at a community level.

Explores the newfound relationship between Egyptians and public space as well as the emergence of resignified subjectivities that developed during the initial eighteen days of revolt in Tahrir through translating the multiple significations and connotations of the word mulid (in colloquial Arabic) / mawlid (in formal Arabic), which means birth. The chapter explores how Egyptians succeeded in translating and revolutionizing their cultural heritage of mulid celebrations- a popular celebration of the birthday of a venerated spiritual figure- which became an integral part of the semiotic processes and rituals that brought forth and sustained the birth (mawlid/mulid) of the “Independent Republic of Tahrir.” By showing how mulids are occasions that disrupt and redefine not just public space but public order as well, the chapter maps out the continuing contest over the real space of Midan al-Tahrir that transcended its local physical meanings to become a global contest over space(s) of tahrir (liberation) worldwide. Tahrir is not just about re-signified public space and public order but equally about re-signified subjectivities at both the collective and individual levels.

This chapter identifies and analyses previously neglected strategic dilemmas confronted at the outset of the formation of Minority Governments by Wilson in 1974 and Callaghan in 1976. Challenging pre-existing myths and assumptions, it shows that their establishment or continuation as Minority Governments were not necessarily inevitable. It is argued that alternative courses of action were considered by policymakers, including the prospects of an early election or a possible Labour coalition with the SDLP in 1976. The Conservative Opposition also played an important role in the formation of these different minority governments, from calls for institutional reform to contemplating a prospective Government of National Unity.