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This paper is a semiotics analysis of national symbols, especially national flags, seeking to insert its emergence in the context of the formation of the modern National States. The methodological approach is critical and interdisciplinary, capitalising on the contributions of Semiotics, History, Sociology and Philosophy. The flag of Brazil is analysed in a detailed manner, as a complex symbol, formed of shapes, colours, natural elements and words. From the historical point of view, the flag of Brazil is a symbol, which safeguards the past of the Brazilian Empire inside the symbol of the Republic of Brazil. From the semiotic point of view, one can see in the plan of expression a set of symbols, which allows us to realise the level of significance, there lying the dialectical conflicts of the history of Brazil. From the point of view of the current political scene, it seeks to analyse the new and main role played by the national flag, in its re-emergence among many demonstrations, and the rebirth of nationalism, within the context of economical, moral and political crises. This allows us to assess the meaning of Brazilian modernity and its future challenges.

When one examines current national anthems and flags, one finds a great deal of variety. What explains this variation? Possible factors include a nation's world-system position and its degree of modernization. Specifically, I analyze the ways in which world-system position and modernization affect the design or configuration—the syntactic structure—of the symbols national leaders adopt to convey their nation's identity. Findings reveal a link between a nation's world-system position and the structure of its symbols. Leaders of core nations adopt more basic anthems and flags than their semiperiphery and periphery counterparts. However, modernization has no such influence.

Conventionally, flags are explained as symbols of group solidarity that achieve force through ritual processes. Alternatively, flags may be seen as symbols with positive or negative associations derived from our experiences with physical space. While this article accepts these interpretations, it also argues that they need to be augmented. Flag meaning is not entirely a social or linguistic construction because there is a link between flag displays and our inherent predispositions to cues about social rank. Our evolved social intelligence makes us sensitive to the topographic features of flag displays that signal relationships of dominance and subordination.

Artefacts containing national or ethnic symbols, such as flags and maps, are frequently used by 14-year-old youth in a multiethnic, suburban municipality in Stockholm. Appearing as ornaments or trinkets to outsiders, to the initiated they are distinctive group markers displaying multiple political and ideological affiliations. As visual symbols these artefacts invoke communicative, but non-verbal, processes: they interpellate viewers who answer with their reactions. Thus these objects serve to both banally reproduce nationalism and ethnicity and to serve as identity markers. These identities are primarily inclusive and non-aggressive. The symbols do not seem to be a sign of resistance to mainstream Swedish society in line with much work in the field of youth culture. Instead, they are used as a proud, visual display of additional identities complementing a Swedish identity. Ethnicity research often covers linguistic markers or ethnic and national identities. In contrast, the area of youthconsumptionof nationalism, in the form of objects featuring national, ethnic and religious symbols, is as yet not well documented. Based on a year-long fieldwork in a junior high school, this paper documents ways in which minority group students handle material artefacts and what these symbols involved mean to them.

Accounts of the relationship between flags and the law have focused on a narrow strain of contentions drawn from debates about political expression. This essay seeks to bridge the gap between cultural studies’ insight into nationalism and its symbolics, and the flag’s legal status, to better understand the unique position occupied by national flags. Flag ‘waving’ has become more prevalent in many liberal democracies. In such societies, flags occupy not a religious role, but a quiet and quotidian place in what Billig terms ‘banal nationalism’. As a cipher for the whole, a particular flag’s design is relatively unimportant; what lends it power is a mix of the gravity bestowed by its official designation and the easy commodification lent by a flag’s easy reproducibility and portability. Unlike other state symbols such as the currency, coat of arms and honorifics, the state does not seek to monopolise the flag’s use, let alone define its meaning. An analysis of the laws in several countries governing flag designation, observance and ‘desecration’ reveals that the law accords the flag distinct status yet only equivocal protection. While the state may crave its citizens’ fealty, a flag is not a symbol of some distant governmentality. Rather, it is gifted to ‘the people’ and relies for its relevance on its organic proliferation. As both object and image, people attribute a power to the flag – a power they recognise over themselves and others with whom they share a body politic. A key source of this fetishisation is its official, legal designation. Though it embodies no particular values, a flag is valued, even fetishised, by flag-wavers and flag-burners alike.

Part of a special issue entitled "The Science of Vexillology"

The object of this thesis is to demonstrate that non-verbal symbols, and in particular national flags, have an essential part in the establishment and management of national identity. It is contended that political legitimacy is derived in part from the national self-presentation and that this presentation can be managed by exploiting the full rangeof the national panoply, i.e., the full range of non-verbal symbols available. In terms of penetration and reciprocation as they form a discourse between the elite and the population flags and related items form a body of material that is easy to handle and to comprehend. But they are also capable of being charged with affective overtones which require care and skill in handling. Key concepts with regard to symbols as hitherto dealt with in social science will be derived from a number of authors who have dealt with the nature of identity and identity crises as part of the modernisation process applicable to nation states. These include Edelman and Pye and the contributors to the 'Crises and Sequences' school of political science. In addition the work of Mosse, Firth, Weitman, Zelinsky, Hobsbawm and Ranger, and other authors who have come closest to the subject under review, will also be examined for contributions in the form of concepts and analytical tools. Also to be examined is the work of modern professional image-makers operating in the commercial world to see what techniques and methods they can deploy successfully. The next stage will be to examine three major identity crises, as exemplified by the American, French and Russian Revolutions to see what efforts, if any, were made by the elite to control and shape their self-presentation and what reciprocation they evinced from their populations.

If the study of politics is to warrant the denomination of political science, it must encompass within its scope any and all phenomena which may be legitimately be called political. Actors, institutions, behavior, conditions, and procedures must be identified and related to one another and their impact on the political process, great or small, must be demonstrated. To the extent that this has not been done, the task of the political scientist is incomplete. Those in the discipline aware of its shortcomings with regard to such catholicity have undertaken extensive new work in recent decades, as a result of which our knowledge of political behaviour has been immeasurably broadened. It would be a mistake, however, to believe that all possible avenues of research have now been opened. One aspect of politics long ignored--and even now only very imperfectly understood--is symbolism. The primary task of this work is to demonstrate that political symbolism is a valid subject and that its study is worthwhile.

A flag show that has a little fun. Twice-monthly chats with folks from all over the vexillology spectrum; from designers, to collectors, to secretaries of flag orgs around the world, enthusiasts of all stripes are welcome here!

Album of cigarette cards from Player's Cigarettes. Date is pre-1945.