Ailsa Henderson analyses each nation's linguistic, racial, cultural, economic, and political diversity within a historical and contemporary context. Challenging the assumption that nationalism in Scotland can be characterized as "civic" in contrast to an "ethnic" model in Quebec, Henderson adopts a more complex model of national identity that distinguishes between nationalistic rhetoric, which is invariably civic in form, and public understandings of belonging, which tend to rely on ethnic markers. In Hierarchies of Belonging she demonstrates that nationalist rhetoric and a sense of belonging affect how citizens feel about the state, the nation, and each other.

Ailsa Henderson is professor of political science at the University of Edinburgh and the author of Hierarchies of Belonging: National Identity and Political Culture in Scotland and Quebec.

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"As we incorporate objective and subjective boundaries and view national identification as a process that relies on a shared understanding of several social factors, we can gain a more detailed view of the dynamics of identity politics. Henderson provides an excellent example of how to do such detailed work." Neal Carter, St. Bonaventure University