Research in Brief How to Do Things with Brands: Uses of National Identity

“Nation brand is national identity made tangible, robust, communicable and above all useful.” – Simon Anholt, 2008 Just when the hegemony of the national form seemed well and truly on the wane, its claims to authority and legitimacy compromised by all manner of networks, “scapes ” (Appadurai, 1997), and flows, a series of contemporary events has re-ignited the national discourse. Current crises of value—economic, political, cul-tural, and moral—have raised the possibility that the protections and provisions offered by the nation-state may be powerful antidotes to the anxieties of global disjunctures. Amid calls to regulate and rebuild the architecture of global integra-tion, the potential of the national imaginary has come once again to the fore. As national leaders try to re-assert their jurisdictional boundaries, they have drawn heavily on their countries ’ cultural identities to promote their constituen-cies as exemplars of both domestic distinction and international fitness.1 Along with declining possibilities for investment in tangible sources of national wealth