“Locked Up” in Nation States: Perceptions of the Relations between the State and National Community within Political and Social Discourse in Lithuania

Abstract

This article examines how the idea of the nation-state is articulated in political and social discourse. In particular, it explores how the national community and the state are positioned vis-a`-vis each other in discourse surrounding national flags. I locate my analysis in Lithuania after the dissolution of the USSR. I explore how the interaction between the state and the nation is discursively represented among politicians and ordinary citizens when they discuss Lithuanian national flag(s). Intriguingly, whereas semi-public discourse could generally be described as “locked up” in thinking in terms of the nation and state as interdependent entities, for political actors the intertwining of the nation and state was a less doxastic state of affairs.