Entrenchment of unionist nationalism: devolution and the discourse of national identity in Scotland Atsuko Ichijo* Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surrey, UK Over 10 years have passed since the current phase of devolution in the United Kingdom started and the article investigates its effects on Scottish political discourse on national identity focusing on the unionist version. Based on an analysis of recent political utterances in Scotland, the article argues that the current devolution settlement has revived and entrenched unionist nationalism in the Scottish political discourse. It also shows that one of the effects of devolution on the debate on national identity is a clearer sign of increasing contestation of Britishness, and suggests that devolution is a double-edge sword in management of multiple national identities. Keywords: unionism; devolution; national identity; discourse; Scottish nationalism Introduction It has been over 10 years since the current Scottish parliament assumed its responsibility over the devolved areas. Devolution to Scotland has produced a variety of topics that merit a careful investigation in studying the phenomenon of national identity. It has been long noted that national identity is important in Scotland, probably more important than it is in England (McCrone, 1992; Pittock, 2008; Bechhofer & McCrone, 2009). Within the context of devolution, an argument can be made that it was the strength of national identity in Scotland which was embodied in the form of civic politics that finally brought about the current arrangement. On this point, a few reservations have been expressed. Some argue against seeing a causal relationship between the survey findings that show a strong level of national identification and political change, since national identity is a poor indicator of political action even in Scotland (Bond, 2009). Others pay more attention to the institutional aspects of implementing devolution and argue that devolution is delivered not only because of the ‘bottom-up’ pressure such as the swelling sentiment of national identity but because of a particular alignment of grievances over legitimacy and the matrix of agenda-setting and decision-making powers in the government (Tijmstra, 2009). This set of questions, therefore, focuses on what role Scottish identity has played in bringing about current devolution. Accordingly, this line of investigation is historical, institutional or even systemic, and is concerned with identification and evaluation of the actual mechanism and processes through which national identity is related to devolution. However, this article is not concerned with this aspect. *Email: A.Ichijo@kingston.ac.uk National Identities Vol. 14, No. 1, March 2012, 2337 ISSN 1460-8944 print/ISSN 1469-9907 online # 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2012.657079 http://www.tandfonline.com