societies different ideologies, however defined, 'not only coexist, compete and clash, but also overlap, affect and contaminate one another' (p. 79 ).

Contingency, of course, leads to an indeterminacy that makes it difficult to say much about ideological struggle that has general applicability. Despite Therborn's belief that there can be a general theory of ideology, he sensibly insists that ideologies, even within the capitalist mode, vary in their contents, and especially in their effects. For example, he notices that nationalism provides an interesting example of how a seemingly straightforward ideological discourse contains numerous contradictions. Therborn notes the historical association between bourgeois revolutions and nationalism 'which became linked to the bourgeois revolution by providing an ideology of struggle that counterposed to the dynastic and/or colonial power a state of legally free and equal citizens encompassing a certain territory' (p. 69 ). But bourgeois ideology is complex and inconsistent, because nationalism can be seen to be at odds with the internationalism ('cosmopolitanism') implied by bourgeois adherence to market rationality and competitive individualism (p. 69 ). Moreover, Therborn recognizes that nationalism, as one of the 'formulae of ruling-class legitimation' (p. 69 ), produces indeterminate outcomes, sometimes leading subordinate classes to rally to the 'national interest' and support of dominant interests, sometimes forming part of the "national popular" tradition' of struggle (p. 70 ).

We endorse this argument and suggest, contrary to what a number of modern Marxists profess, that nationalism qualifies most uneasily as part of the dominant ideology of late capitalism, at least in Britain. Although capitalism developed within nation-states and still has an important national orientation, late capitalism also has a significant transnational character which means that the status of nationalism as a bourgeois ideology is ambiguous. Different economic interests within capitalism and their associated class fractions, national and international, have therefore created contradictory positions within the dominant ideology. In so far as nationalism has effects for subordinates, these are also contradictory. On the one hand, nationalism has often formed part of a popular counter-ideology. As Hobsbawm ⁸ has cogently reminded us, the combination of patriotism and workingclass consciousness has been historically a powerful agency of radical social change, as it was in Britain in the aftermath of the Second World

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