Nationalism and community in North West Wales

This paper develops an explanation for the simultaneous surge in support of both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary nationalism in North West Wales. Close analysis of the way in which the concept 'community' is used within the process of political mobilisation provides the key to this understanding. By demonstrating that a number of social constructions of community co-exist within the same social space (in this instance, North West Wales), the paper contributes an added dimension to the understandings of community current within sociology. The paper identifies four social constructions of community, each relating to a different variant of Nationalist ideology. The capacity within the concept community to legitimate a locality simultaneously as a place of resistance and of conflict is demonstrated to be central to the explanation for the dual rise in nationalist support.