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The evolution of the civic–ethnic distinction as a partial success story: Lessons for the nationalism–patriotism distinction
... In the first section, we discuss the content of different conceptions of national identity. While we acknowledge that this is a complex debate with multiple overlapping, unstable, and often controversial definitions of nationhood, we use these conceptions in a pragmatic way to shed light on the content of Mexican national identity (Theiss-Morse 2009;Schildkraut 2011Schildkraut , 2014Bertossi and Duyvendak 2012;Huddy 2016;Ariely 2020;Piwoni and Mußotter 2023;Miller 1995;Mylonas and Tudor 2021). Second, we argue that understanding national membership in Mexico and its consequences today requires understanding the history and context that shaped the process of Mexican identity construction. ...
... When people think about the constitutive norms of their national identity, they think about the features they share with their community. The most relevant conceptual building blocks in the study of national identity are the following dimensions: (1) the ethnic vs. civic dimension; and (2) the nationalism vs. patriotism dimension (Brubaker 1992;Schildkraut 2014, 447;Theiss-Morse 2009;Green et al. 2011;Wright et al. 2012;Huddy 2016;Lindstam et al. 2021;Piwoni and Mußotter 2023). We use these categories as a heuristic device in our empirical research, but we acknowledge the complex, polymorphous character of this classification. ...
... We use these categories as a heuristic device in our empirical research, but we acknowledge the complex, polymorphous character of this classification. These dimensions should be regarded as a continuum rather than starkly different, immutable categories (Piwoni and Mußotter 2023). ...
In this paper, we explore the bases of Mexican national identity construction and use an array of conceptions of nationhood to study contemporary attitudes towards foreigners’ sociopolitical rights in Mexico. Rarely is the study of national identity connected with immigration policy preferences in general, and even less so outside advanced countries. We explore the content of Mexicanness and use this content to understand public opinion preferences towards the integration of diverse groups of foreigners in Mexico. We employ 2016 survey data and a survey experiment and find the persistence of xenophobic attitudes towards the Chinese community in Mexico. We also show that civic conceptions of nationhood cannot counter contemporary anti-Chinese sentiment, in great part because the civic belonging of the Chinese was defined on racial terms. Lastly, we show that these processes of national identity construction, based on the marginalization of certain groups, are persistent and shape todays’ attitudes and preferences towards the incorporation of different groups of foreigners. It remains to be explored whether material interests associated with the recent Chinese “going out” policy may be able to counter deep-seated anti-Chinismo
... Survey research on national identity can draw on a rich array of concepts and measures to study this complex phenomenon. To name but a few, some researchers distinguish between nationalism and patriotism (e.g., Davidov 2009;Huddy et al. 2021; see further Mußotter 2022Mußotter , 2024, while others apply the civicethnic framework (e.g., Helbling et al. 2016;Kunovich 2009;Reeskens and Hooghe 2010; for a review, see Piwoni and Mußotter 2023) or focus on the national identity argument (e.g., Miller and Ali 2014;Rapp 2022). Unfortunately, these different research traditions largely operate in isolation, adhering to their own terminology without addressing how their work relates to contributions from other approaches-despite the fact that the key questions motivating this research are largely the same, such as whether national identity promotes solidarity and cooperation or, conversely, competition and conflict within and between societies. ...
... In this context, we adopt the role of 'content experts'. According to Almanasreh et al. (2019, 216), such experts are expected to possess 'the necessary content expertise and theoretical background in order to provide a comprehensive assessment of the instrument'-criteria we fulfil as long-standing and active researchers in the field of survey-based national identity research (e.g., Mader 2016;Mader et al. 2018;Mader et al. 2021;Lindstam et al. 2021;Mader and Schoen 2023;Mußotter 2022Mußotter , 2024Mußotter and Rapp 2025;Piwoni and Mußotter 2023;Bruinsma and Mußotter 2023). Rather than merely offering a final judgement, our aim is to provide a transparent argumentation that links item content to theoretical subdimensions, culminating in a reasoned proposal that others may adopt, refine or contest. ...
Survey-based research on national identity has long grappled with a 'tangle' of conflicting concepts, inconsistent use of measures and inconclusive empirical findings. This article addresses the measurement side of this tangle, evaluating whether social identity theory (SIT) can serve as a conceptual framework to clarify and organize existing indicators. Drawing on methods from content validity analysis, we examine survey instruments from the National Identity module of the International Social Survey Program (ISSP). The analysis shows that all items can be related to SIT's central components, including identification and content dimensions. However, many items cannot be unequivocally assigned to a single concept within SIT, and the degree of ambiguity varies across items. These findings highlight both the promises and the limitations of SIT as a structuring tool for addressing empirical challenges in national identity research and point to the need for further theoretical and methodological refinement in this field.
... Furthermore, many researchers began reengaging with the civic-ethnic dichotomy, albeit keeping in mind the criticisms that the original civic-ethnic division theory had received. For instance, much of the latest scholarship of Eastern European cases demonstrated that the civic-ethnic approach offered analytical value in explaining various aspects of nation-building, 18 albeit with a caveat that scholars should avoid framing entire nations as either ethnic or civic, 19 avoid attaching any normative judgment to the ethnic and civic concepts and avoid generalizations across countries and regions. 20 As Piwoni and Mußotter concur: ...
Abstract
Using data from an original country-wide survey (N = 4,000) and series of in-depth interviews conducted across Kazakhstan in 2023, this paper explores respondents’ perceptions of civic and ethnic identity and belonging in Kazakhstan’s nation-building project. This article also serves as an enhanced follow-up study of an earlier survey-based project conducted in 2016 (N = 1,600) across Kazakhstan. Usage and cross-comparison of these comprehensive datasets collected in 2016 and 2023 will permit to trace changes and dynamics in the national identity perception in Kazakhstan and to assess the interplay between the civic nation-building policies of the Kazakhstani state and perceptions of ordinary Kazakhstanis.
... Ethno-religious identity, on the other hand, was associated with more extreme views in the pro-reform camp. These findings indicate a connection between more inclusive social identities and liberal-democratic attitudes, and vice versa-the connection between exclusive social identities and political preferences which lean away from liberal democracy 97,98 . ...
This work explored polarization over Israel’s Judicial Reform, introduced in January 2023. We find that the reform divided people into pro- and anti-reform camps, which differed in characteristics such as institutional trust, patriotism, and national identity. For example, the camps disagreed about trust in the government versus the judiciary. In line with motivated reasoning—biased reasoning processes used to reach desired conclusions—people’s pre-existing characteristics motivated polarized views of the reform as a threat to democracy (issue-based polarization) and negative emotions towards opponents (affective polarization). Further demonstrating a motivated process, pro-reform participants (the electorate majority), prioritized majority rule over other democratic features (e.g., minority rights) compared to anti-reform participants. Polarization differentially predicted downstream consequences (e.g., protest methods), indicating that the camps’ reactions were motivated by the extremity of their views and negative emotions. This work extends the understanding of potentially motivated polarization processes and their immediate downstream consequences.
... Ethno-religious identity, on the other hand, was associated with more extreme views in the pro-reform camp. These findings indicate a connection between more inclusive social identities and liberal-democratic attitudes, and vice versa-the connection between exclusive social identities and political preferences which lean away from liberal democracy 97,98 . ...
This work explored a rapidly unfolding polarizing issue – Israel’s Judicial Reform, introduced in January 2023. We documented mass polarization over whether the judicial reform presents a threat to democracy and examined its predictors. We found evidence that different types of polarization are related, but distinct constructs. Specifically, issue-based, affective, and perceived societal polarization are differentially predicted by trust in democratic institutions (i.e., government, judiciary, and media), constructive patriotism, and social identity. Constructive patriotism and trust in institutions predicted issue-based and affective polarization, whereas social identity predicted only issue-based polarization. These effects vary across pro- and anti-reform individuals. Perceived societal polarization was predicted by generalized trust and universalism/benevolence values across the polarized camps. These types of polarization differentially predicted downstream consequences of polarization–conflict management attitudes, acts of, and responses to, civil protests, and outgroup attitudes. We discuss the results in the context of growing anti-liberal-democratic movements and the importance of democratic education.
The article is devoted to the actual problem of patriotic education of young people. The article takes a new approach to the study of patriotic disposition, rethinking the concepts of "patriotism" and "patriotic disposition." Love for the Motherland, loyalty, willingness to serve it, and recognition of its value to the individual were considered as the main components of the patriotic disposition. At the same time, patriotism is not understood by us as something foreign to the individual and, in the course of patriotic education, imposed on it from the outside. In all its manifestations, patriotism was recognized as a personality-determined phenomenon. A patriotic disposition, including attitudes, values, beliefs, being formed and included in the system of personal relationships, is reflected in activity and behavior. An attempt has been made to reconstruct subjective models of patriotic disposition in the value-semantic sphere of personality. The use of the Repertory Grid Test allowed us to conclude that the patriotic disposition as a component of the value-semantic sphere of personality is unique and has its own systemic organization, one of the most important components of which is the value-semantic component, since it directs the behavior and activity of the individual, serves as a decision-making tool. In the systems of personal constructs, students associate patriotism with rigidity having a negative connotation. The opposite pole of patriotism – migration attitudes – in the semantic space are associated with the needs for free self-realization and security. The semantic models of patriotic disposition in the semantic space have high variability. The weak manifestation of the patriotic disposition in the personal systems of constructs indicates the importance of continuing work on the patriotic education of young people. One of the effective principles of this work can be the subject-activity principle.
This article addresses three caveats in populist radical right (PRR) voter studies focusing on gender and sexuality: omission of potential voters, representing gender and sexuality as one undifferentiated category, and issue-specific rather than comparative analysis. We use a theory-grounded latent class analysis, based on the Dutch Parliamentary Election Study (2021), to identify voter profiles in terms of how nativism, populism, and gender identity and sexuality attitudes combine differently among citizens who are inclined to vote populist radical right. Empirically, we find distinct profiles in terms of populism, nativism and gender identity and sexuality attitudes: a small minority of gender-and-sexuality-conservatives and larger classes of more modern and moderate potential populist radical right voters; but all clearly nativist. Abstracting from the specific case of the Netherlands, we provide typological descriptions of populist radical right voters that are likely also relevant in other countries.
This editors’ introduction into the themed issue of IJCS dedicated to the analysis of comparative survey work on national identity and globalization presents a very brief overview of core hypotheses from the five articles collected in the issue. The articles offer a variety of new, rather differentiated insights into how individual-level national identity attitudes and sibling concepts like national pride, patriotism, and nationalist chauvinism are related to societal-level variables that tend to vary with exposure to aspects of globalization, such as migrant influx and economic competition. Aside from the focus on those new contributions, the introduction also offers a few observations on the challenges that the wider national identity research field still faces. Given that the field is dealing with several overlapping attitude concepts, this centrally concerns a partial lack of conceptual clarity, which sometimes translates into ambiguous operationalizations and incomplete or imprecise explication of theoretical mechanisms. We conclude that the contributions of the themed issue, with their careful attention to particular aspects of measures and multi-level processes, may serve as another stepping stone for overcoming at least some of those challenges in the future.
The dichotomy between civic Western nationalism and ethnic non‐Western nationalism (also known as “the Kohn dichotomy” after the historian of nationalism Hans Kohn) remains one of the most influential frameworks for understanding nationalism. It is also one of the most controversial: The binary schema has been criticised not only for its conceptual inconsistencies but also for entrenching an ethnocentric hierarchy that depicts Western nations as fountains of civic virtue. This article enriches these longstanding debates by excavating the neglected inverse side of the Kohn dichotomy. Since the late nineteenth century, the idealised Western nation is imagined not only as a civic polity united by common political traditions but also as an organic community blessed with natural boundaries. In short, Western nations are depicted as both civic and ethnic. Meanwhile, non‐Western nations are denied the privilege of being contradictory and deemed to suffer from a perennial mismatch between civic and ethnic elements: Non‐Western nations are depicted either as ethnic communities lacking civic traditions or as artificial political constructions lacking organic roots. Without taking into account this intricate dialectic between the civic and ethnic poles of the nation form, critics of the Kohn dichotomy will struggle to fully grasp its ideological functions or historical longevity.
The article is an investigation into the historical process of nation building in Russia and its impact on shaping state ideology during the Putin era. To this respect, I am planning to argue for a reassessment of current understandings of Russia’s political regime and ideology, by abandoning the simplistic view of an authoritarian regime dominated by a strong man figure using a simulacrum of ideology to legitimate his position and political decisions, and to place Putinism into perspective, as an organic development of a mainly pre-Soviet era Russian ideological and collective identity discourse.
Patriotism and nationalism are typically conceptualized as two distinct if not conflicting forms of national attachment. Carrying a substantial normative dimension, the former is often linked to an enlightened sense of community that takes pride in the commitment to democratic values, whereas the latter is understood as an exclusionary and uncritical attachment to the nation. It is this dichotomy and the categorical assumptions at its core which this article subjects to critical appraisal largely missing from the debate. We first (a) address the confusion that comes from constructing national attachment as fixed and dualistic. Then, we (b) highlight the lack of contextual awareness in empirical research that employs scales and items regardless of geographical or temporal peculiarities. Finally, we (c) cast light on the implications entailed, in particular, the legitimacy provided to the civic ideal of a good and reasonable patriotism.
This article argues for an analytic distinction between questions of collective identity and questions of solidarity in studies of nationhood. Whereas the former inquiry centres on group classifications and commonalities, the latter examines cooperation and patterns of interaction among group members. Although theoretical discussion of national solidarity is sparse, three central approaches in the field can be highlighted: understanding solidarity as a byproduct of identity, as a relationship between strangers and as an extension of sociability. The distinction between solidarity and identity bears on the much‐disputed dichotomy between ethnic and civic nationalism. Civic nationalism has been widely criticized for failing to account for group boundaries and shared culture. Yet its emphasis on patterns of interaction and cooperation should not be neglected either. Instead of addressing the civic–ethnic dichotomy as two types of national identity, one could benefit from differentiating between epistemological questions about (ethnic‐national) identity and those about (civic‐national) solidarity.
The measurement models for both nationalism and patriotism originally developed by Blank and Schmidt are broadly established. Despite their widespread usage in Germany and beyond, concerns have been voiced about the operationalisation of these nation-related concepts. However, in previous scholarship little attention has been devoted to systematically reviewing the models’ validity. This paper’s major goal is to contribute substantially to research on operationalising national attitudes by thoroughly examining how both nationalism and patriotism are measured and how valid the predominant measurement models really are. By running a confirmatory factor analysis, three measurement models based on the ISSP data of 2003 are replicated and empirically reviewed. By conducting a single-country analysis, the models are tested for the German case, including the evaluation of measurement invariance for both Eastern and Western Germany. Although the selected measurement models yield satisfying results, the paper identifies considerable shortcomings with regard to the way both nationalism and patriotism are empirically approached. It calls for a reconceptualising of the prevailing concept of pride and thus challenges the predominant operationalisation.
Does attachment to a nation enhance or dampen support for the European Union (EU)? Using the 2003 and 2013 ISSP national identity modules, we isolate and provide multi-item measures of two distinct types of national attachment-nationalism and patriotism. We find that they are positively related yet have divergent effects. We validate the measures showing that nationalism increases, and patriotism decreases, support for nationalistic policies (anti-immigration and protectionism) as expected. We then test the effects of nationalism and patriotism on EU attitudes and find that nationalism increases, and patriotism decreases, opposition to the EU. The presence of a neo-nationalist political party enhanced the effects of nationalism on opposition to the EU, underscoring the importance of political rhetoric in shaping nationalistic EU opposition. In further support of the rhetoric hypothesis, the most-educated nationalists are most likely to oppose the EU in countries with a neo-nationalist political party and vote for such parties when present.
As globalisation makes national boundaries both permeable and contested, conflicts over national identity and related policy issues are bound to increase the salience of citizens' individual national identitiesand, consequently, increase their impact on political attitudes and behaviour. We study the link between ethnocultural and civic dimensions of national identity and turnout and party preferences. After providing a theoretical discussion that integrates conceptions of national identity into established models of turnout and party preference formation, we explore the merit of accounting for these conceptions of national identity in a case study of Germany. Analysing data from two surveys conducted in the period between 2015 and 2017, we show that acceptance of civic criteria of national identity was positively associated with turnout and partisan support for all German parties besides the AfD. Acceptance of ethnocultural criteria was associated with increased support for (centre‐) right and decreased support for (centre‐) left parties. Some of these patterns differ significantly and in predictable ways between the two data points bracketing the height of the European refugee crisis. These findings suggest that individual conceptions of national identity may be of importance for our understanding turnout decisions and party preferences, but the specific relationships presumably depend on contextual conditions.
National identities are often conceived of as factors that lend structure and stability to citizens’ political opinions on issues such as immigration. While citizens who define national membership in ethno-cultural terms are less likely to support immigration, those with a civic conception are more likely to do so. The authors propose that defining national identity along both ethno-cultural and civic lines may give rise to conflicting considerations, leading people to experience ambivalence, implying that national identities may serve less as a stabilizing force than suggested by previous research. Findings from heterogeneous choice models and a unique survey experiment show that German citizens with mixed conceptions of national identity had more variable and more malleable opinions than individuals with ideal-type conceptions during the 2015/2016 European refugee crisis. The findings point to an identity-based source of ambivalence and extend current understandings of how people form attitudes towards immigration.
This article contests the view that the ‘new nationalism’ is a linear, i.e. constantly and consistently increasing over time, novel and uniform phenomenon best understood as a cultural backlash. It argues that while the rhetoric of these parties is indeed centred on nationalism, the drivers of support are neither new nor necessarily nationalism – related. Specifically, using data from the 7th (2014) wave of the European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2017 Comparative Manifestos Project (CMP/MARPOR) dataset, our argument is threefold: (1) it is important to conceptually distinguish between populism and nationalism. The conceptual decoupling of these two terms suggests that the label ‘far right’ is more analytically useful than ‘right-wing populism’ because it accounts better for the diversity between parties included in this category, while at the same time it identifies the common denominator that makes them comparable: rather than populism, this is nationalism. This allows us to draw meaningful conclusions about the extent to which this phenomenon is comparable across cases. (2) Voters’ economic concerns remain pivotal within the context of the transnational cleavage, which suggests that voting behavior continues to be structured by two dimensions of contestation; (3), the explanatory power of nationalism is in the supply, i.e. the ways in which parties use nationalism strategically in an attempt to broaden their appeal by presenting themselves as legitimate to large sections of the population.
Voting for radical right-wing parties has been associated most strongly with national identity threats. In Europe, this has been framed by the radical right in terms of mass-migration and European integration, or other politicians bargaining away national interests. Perhaps surprisingly given the radical right’s nationalist ideology, nationalistic attitudes are hardly included in empirical research on the voting behaviour. In this contribution, we test to what extent various dimensions of nationalistic attitudes affect radical right voting, next to the earlier and new assessed effects of perceived ethnic threat, social distance to Muslims, Euroscepticism and political distrust. The findings show that national identification, national pride and an ethnic conception of nationhood are additional explanations of radical right voting. National identification’s effect on radical right voting is found to be stronger when populations on average perceive stronger ethnic threat.
There seems to be a wide consensus in the academic community that the Holocaust is gradually losing significance in the German public. This development is clearly reflected in public elite discourse on national identity, where “Holocaust-centered memory” has ceased to be
hegemonic. In the literature, several interpretations and reasons have been presented to explain this development. This paper contributes to the debate by arguing that the declining presence of Holocaust-centered arguments in intellectual elite discourse on national identity is due to a new
consensual idea of German nationhood. Based on an event-oriented discourse analysis of more than 800 articles in opinion-leading newspapers, journals and magazines covering a period of more than twenty years, I argue that in national identity discourse, the Holocaust has never been—as
is usually assumed—a blockade to displays of national identity in general, but only to a specific interpretation of the German nation as a Volk and as an exclusionist culture nation. By contrast, the idea of nationhood that dominates in the German public sphere today, the civic
nation model, has never invoked Holocaust-centered counter-arguments—not even in the Historikerstreit in the 1980s. Thus, over the past three decades, the way national identity discourse has operated might have changed less than had often been assumed. The central argument of
this paper is that the Holocaust has become a “latent”—but not a less consequential—argumentative resource.
This article scrutinizes the theoretically proposed positive sides of different forms of civic national attachment. Data come from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) 1995, which is a programme for cross-country comparative attitude studies. Two different forms of attachment and their relationships to xenophobia have been examined, namely national identity and national pride. In order to dismiss possible country-specific phenomena, four Western countries, Australia, Germany, Britain and Sweden were studied. The choice of countries was based on the different policy regimes implemented in the areas of citizenship and immigration, which illustrate how the nation-state is conceptualized in the different countries. The results show that both civic national identity and national pride go together with xenophobia, whereas the reverse holds for ethnic national identity and national pride in all four countries, despite their different conceptualizations of the nation-state. In all, the article gives empirical support for the proposed theoretical argument of a separation of the civic and ethnic in society.
Nationalism and patriotism can be thought of as consequences of national identity that represent positive evaluations of one's own group but imply different social goals. This paper investigates the ways in which these concepts are related to attitudes toward minorities. The data analyzed were drawn from a representative sample of residents of the former East and West Germany who responded to items on the national identity of Germans in 1996 as part of a panel study. A model with multiple indicators was tested via a multiple-group analysis of a structural equations model followed by latent class analyses. Both East and West Germans displayed attitudinal patterns that link national identity with tolerance toward others; in both subsamples, nationalism and patriotism were respectively associated with greater intolerance and greater tolerance toward minorities.
One of the most influential theories in the study of nationalism has been the ethnic-East/civic-West framework developed by Hans Kohn. Using the 2002 Eurobarometer survey on national identity and building on earlier survey studies, this article examines whether the Kohn framework is valid at the level of popular understandings of nationhood. It scrutinizes the framework both conceptually – do people define nationhood in civic or ethnic terms? – and regionally – is the East indeed more ethnic than the West and the West more civic than the East? It will show that identity markers cluster in a political, a cultural and an ethnic dimension. Respondents do not see these dimensions as competing sources of nationhood, however. The article further lends some support for the regional component of the framework. Lastly, it argues that it is the intensity of national identifications rather than their qualitative nature (ethnic-civic) that correlates with xenophobia.
A number of cross-sectional studies have demonstrated a significant co-variation of patriotism and nationalism with prejudice against immigrants. This study examines the causal relationship between the three variables among 551 adult German respondents without migration background. Employing a longitudinal cross-lagged design with two measurements 4 years apart, a positive and significant effect of nationalism on prejudice was found. Patriotism predicted ethnic prejudice negatively when nationalism was controlled for. However, in a separate cross-lagged model where the common variance between nationalism and patriotism was not controlled for, patriotism had no causal effect on prejudice. In the discussion, these contradictory effects of patriotism on prejudice against immigrants are interpreted as the result of different dimensions composing patriotism, namely national identification and adherence to democratic norms. Consequences and political implications of the results are discussed, referring to the negative effects of enforcing both nationalism and patriotism.
The idea of a purely civic nationalism has attracted Western scholars, most of whom rightly disdain the myths that sustain ethnonationalist theories of political community. Civic nationalism is particularly attractive to many Americans, whose peculiar national heritage encourages the delusion that their mutual association is based solely on consciously chosen principles. But this idea misrepresents political reality as surely as the ethnonationalist myths it is designed to combat. And propagating a new political myth is an especially inappropriate way of defending the legacy of Enlightenment liberalism from the dangers posed by the growth of nationalist political passions.
Hans Kohn's definition of a more "liberal, civic Western" and "illiberal, ethnic Eastern" nationalism has been highly influential in providing a framework for our understanding of different types of nationalism. This article challenges the Kohn framework as idealized and argues that it did not reflect historical reality and is out of step with contemporary theories of nationalism. Its continued use also ignores the evolution from communist to civic states that has taken place in central-eastern Europe during the 1990s. The assumption that Western nation-states were always "civic" from their inception in the late eighteenth century is criticized and a different framework is proposed that sees Western states as only having become civic recently. In times of crisis (immigration, foreign wars, domestic secessionism, terrorism), the civic element of the state may continue to be overshadowed by ethnic particularist factors. The proportional composition of a country's ethnic particularism and civic universalism has always been in tension and dependent not on geography but on two factors: the historic stage of the evolution from ethnic to civic state and nationhood and the depth of democratic consolidation.
This article compares three countries with different policy regimes in the area of citizenship and immigration, namely Australia, Germany and Sweden. Australia is here defined as multicultural, Germany as ‘ethnic’ and Sweden as semi‐multicultural. The aim is to see, first, if differences in policy regimes are reflected in the attitudes of national identity amongst the citizens, and second, to assess the effects different forms of national identity have on xenophobia. The conclusions are, first, that in spite of different policy regimes, national identity is constituted in similar ways in the three countries and, second, that the common subdivision of national identity into an ‘ethnic’ and a civic part may warrant reconsideration. Third, different types of national identity appear to affect xenophobia similarly in all the three countries under examination, namely in a way which supports the common assumption that civic identities are preferable to ethnic ones.
Why is national identity such a potent force in people's lives? And is the force positive or negative? In this thoughtful and provocative book, Elizabeth Theiss-Morse develops a social theory of national identity and uses a national survey, focus groups, and experiments to answer these important questions in the American context. Her results show that the combination of group commitment and the setting of exclusive boundaries on the national group affects how people behave toward their fellow Americans. Strong identifiers care a great deal about their national group. They want to help and be loyal to their fellow Americans. By limiting who counts as an American, though, these strong identifiers place serious limits on who benefits from their pro-group behavior. Help and loyalty are offered only to "true Americans," not Americans who do not count and who are pushed to the periphery of the national group.
The present study examined national attitudes among Japanese citizens. A National Identity Scale was developed and administered to a non–student sample (n = 385) and an undergraduate sample (n = 586) in a metropolitan area of Japan. The results revealed aspects that are common (i.e., etic) to different nationalities and those that are indigenous (i.e., emic) to Japanese people. Factor analyses identified etic factors of patriotism (i.e., love of the homeland), nationalism (belief in superiority over other nations), and internationalism (preference for international cooperation and unity). Attachment to the ingroup and ethnocentrism were thus shown to be separate dimensions. Distinct from these factors, commitment to national heritage emerged as an emic component of Japanese national identity. The discriminant validity of these factors was demonstrated in differential relationships with other variables, such as ideological beliefs and amount of knowledge. Commitment to national heritage was associated with conservatism, whereas internationalism was related to liberal ideology, a high level of media exposure, and knowledge of international affairs. Implications for the study of intergroup and international relations are discussed.
This paper explores the possibilities of method triangulation between two methodological approaches for assessing the validity performance of survey items:cognitive
interviewing and factor analytic techniques. Although their means of approaching validity differ, both methods attempt to prove whether a measure corresponds to a theoretical(latent)concept (e.g. patriotism vs. nationalism), thus both are concerned with the question, whether an indicator measures what it is supposed to measure. Based on two representative samples for Austria [data gathered within the framework of the International Social Survey Program ISSP) on National Identity in 1995 and 2003] and 18 cognitive interviews conducted between 2003 and 2005, the paper shows the considerable advantages of using a multi-method approach for ensuring the quality of survey items. On the one hand, we apply exploratory and
confirmatory factor analysis in order to identify poorly performing indicators with regard to validity and reliability. On the other hand, the analysis of the cognitive interviews reveals the substantial sources of response error. Results show that to a large extent, respondents do not understand the items that have been defined to measure national identification and related
concepts in Austria the way intended by the drafting group of this ISSP Module, a fact that has considerable implications on the scales’ predictive power.
Recognizing democratic backsliding and increasing support for authoritarianism, research on public preferences for democracy and its authoritarian alternatives has gained traction. Moving beyond the extant focus on economic determinants, our analysis examines the effect of national identity, demonstrating that it is a double-edged sword for regime preferences. Using recent European Values Survey data on 24 European countries from 2017 to 2018, we show that civic national identity is associated with a higher support for democracy and lower support for authoritarian regimes, whereas the reverse holds for ethnic identities. Further, economic hardship moderates these relationships: it strengthens both the negative effect of ethnic national identities and, to some extent, the positive effect of civic national identities on democracy support vis-à-vis authoritarian alternatives. This has important implications for the survival of democracy in times of crises and the study of a cultural backlash, since social identity matters substantively for individuals’ responses to economic hardship.
Two principal dimensions are commonly identified within the complex phenomenon of national identity: national boundaries and attachment to the nation. Few studies have sought to examine them together. By their combination, this study is based on the premise of the tension between a more open and inclusive view of the nation, as reflected in civic identity and patriotism, and a more closed and exclusionary conception, as reflected in ethnic identity and nationalism. The findings from a cross-national analysis provide only partial support for a comprehensive model of national identity and are discussed in light of the limitations of the measures.
Patriotism and nationalism represent distinct forms of national attachment that often predict divergent attitudes. However, various combinations of high/low patriotism and nationalism might indicate different types of national attachment with distinct implications for socio-political attitudes. Applying Latent Profile Analysis to a large national sample of New Zealanders (N = 13,936), we identified seven unique national attachment profiles. Among these profiles were pure patriots (10.6%) who exhibited high patriotism but low nationalism, whereas nationalistic patriots (33.1%) were equally patriotic but expressed mid-to-high levels of nationalism. Membership in profiles low in national attachment was uncommon, and we found no evidence of a high nationalism, low patriotism profile. In terms of the correlates of profile membership, pure patriots had the most positive attitudes toward immigrants, while low attachment profiles expressed particularly liberal political orientations and voting intentions. Accordingly, these analyses identify distinct profiles of citizens with important implications for social and political attitudes.
Despite the centrality of national identity in the exclusionary discourse of the European radical right, scholars have not investigated how popular definitions of nationhood are connected to dispositions toward Muslims. Moreover, survey‐based studies tend to conflate anti‐Muslim attitudes with general anti‐immigrant sentiments. This article contributes to research on nationalism and out‐group attitudes by demonstrating that varieties of national self‐understanding are predictive of anti‐Muslim attitudes, above and beyond dispositions toward immigrants. Using latent class analysis and regression models of survey data from 41 European countries, it demonstrates that conceptions of nationhood are heterogeneous within countries and that their relationship with anti‐Muslim attitudes is contextually variable. Consistent with expectations, in most countries, anti‐Muslim attitudes are positively associated with ascriptive – and negatively associated with elective (including civic) – conceptions of nationhood. Northwestern Europe, however, is an exception to this pattern: in this region, civic nationalism is linked to greater antipathy toward Muslims. It is suggested that in this region, elective criteria of belonging have become fused with exclusionary notions of national culture that portray Muslims as incompatible with European liberal values, effectively legitimating anti‐Muslim sentiments in mainstream political culture. This may heighten the appeal of anti‐Muslim sentiments not only on the radical right, but also among mainstream segments of the Northwestern European public, with important implications for social exclusion and political behaviour.
There are reasons why some political ideas fit better into a theoretical framework than others. This article analyzes attempts to detheorize nationalism, arguing that they serve three major functions. First, they free nationalists from universalizing their arguments and from the ensuing rights and obligations. Second, they allow its rivals to present nationalism as morally inferior to other political standpoints. Third, they lead to the singling out and legitimization of one specific form of nationalism that is principle driven. Drawing a line between forms of nationalism—those motivated by primordial feelings and those motivated by rational and universal principles—lays the groundwork for a distinction between ethnic and civic nationalism. Though in theory these are two distinct forms of nationalism, in reality the boundaries are blurred. And yet advocates of civic nationalism keep the distinction alive, wishing to distance themselves from the other form of nationalism and promoting a vision (some would say the illusion) of a nationless nationalism. Assuming that Western democracies have transcended their national and ethnic elements encourages politicians to ignore social schisms, avoiding the need to cope with their consequences. The civic language therefore not only is theoretically inaccurate but also motivates avoidance where action is needed. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Political Science Volume 22 is May 13, 2019. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
This article assesses the analytical value of the “Kohn dichotomy” – the notion that there are two types of nationalism, resting on civic values in the West and on ethnic values outside the West. It begins by outlining the intellectual history of this dichotomy since its origin in the 1860s and by analyzing its main features. It contrasts the state traditions of Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe in three areas: the geopolitical evolution of the state, the state’s perspective on its own population as reflected in efforts to measure “ethnic nationality” through such instruments as the population census, and divergences in citizenship law. It shows that data from recent programs of comparative survey research, and analysis of nationalist ideology, highlight the variety of forms that nationalism may take in the two parts of Europe. The article concludes that the “ethnic–civic” dichotomy is valuable as an ideal type with the capacity to shed light on the nature of ethnic affiliation, not as a categorical classification system. Different ethnonational groups comprise mixtures of people who use a combination of “ethnic” and “civic” reference points; they do not coincide with global territorial zones that may be identified with any level of clarity.
The founding works of nationalism theory identify two overarching categories of nationalism: civic and ethnic. While the former is lauded as liberal, inclusive, and rational, the latter is derided as regressive, restrictive, and exclusionary. More recent work on nationalism has problematized these characterizations, but has largely retained the civic/ethnic binary. This article critiques the civic/ethnic binary from the perspective of postcolonial theory. Drawing on de Sousa Santos’s abyssal line and Fanon’s zones of being and non-being, the article argues that the relationship between metropolis and empire is foundational to the relationship between civic and ethnic nationalism. Yet the category of civic nationalism obscures racialized patterns of exclusion within civic nations, such that the standards of inclusion within a civic nation are constructed on the basis of excluding the nation’s Others. Because civic nationalism is predicated on the creation and denial of Others, presenting civic nationalism as a global ideal is impossible. The article concludes by considering the promise of transnational social movements in the global South as an answer to both civic and ethnic nationalism.
This article describes how contemporary publics think about the nation along Kohn's classic distinction between ‘civic’ and ‘ethnic’ nationalism. The article makes three contributes to the existing literature. Firstly, it introduces a new statistical tool, multi-classification analysis, to establish and analyse the two-dimensional structure found in this and previous studies. Secondly, it derives at an alternative interpretation, with a first dimension distinguishing the level of mobilization of nationalist attitudes and a second dimension distinguishing the relative emphasis given to civic and ethnic elements. Thirdly, it demonstrates how this set-up can be used to describe differences within countries, across countries and across time using all three rounds of International Social Survey Programme data on national identity. The descriptions demonstrate a move towards mobilized ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe, while a stable non-mobilized civic nationalism prevails in many West European countries, despite the rise of new right-wing parties.
Over the last decade, the topic of national-identity has gained considerable importance after various heads of states have made it an important political issue in the context of ongoing globalisation and European integration processes. There is also a large, mainly historical literature that has emphasised the role of the political elite in the formation of national-identities. While this argument is widely discussed in both public and academic debates, there is, surprisingly, hardly any empirical research on this issue. We do not know whether elite positions resonate with how the masses think about these issues. We therefore set out to test this relationship by combining the 2003 wave of the International Social Survey Programme and content analysis of elite mobilisation rhetoric from the Comparative Manifesto Project. Results indicate that an overlap exists between politicians' articulation of exclusive notions about the contours of national-identity and heightened expressions of civic and ethnic national-identity within public opinion. By contrast, elite mobilisation along more inclusive lines appears ineffective. From this, it appears that exclusionary arguments play a more important role, at least in terms of attitudes about national-identity, than inclusionary ones.
Due to a preoccupation with periods of large-scale social change, nationalism research had long neglected everyday nationhood in contemporary democracies. Recent scholarship, however, has begun to shift the focus of this scholarly field toward the study of nationalism not only as a political project but also as a cognitive, affective, and discursive category deployed in daily practice. Integrating insights from work on banal and everyday nationalism, collective rituals, national identity, and commemorative struggles with survey-based findings from political psychology, I demonstrate that meanings attached to the nation vary within and across populations as well as over time, with important implications for microinteraction and for political beliefs and behavior, including support for exclusionary policies and authoritarian politics. I conclude by suggesting how new developments in methods of data collection and analysis can inform future research on this topic.
Introducing the category ‘weak nationalism’, this article emphasises the scales of intensity and the different operational modes of nationalism across time and space, as well as within the same space. It refuses to create a model or another dichotomy – strong/weak – on a par with earlier ones like organic/civic, Eastern/Western, bad/good. Rather, it approaches nationalism as a binary variable on a scale from weak/low to strong/high. It argues to extend the research focus beyond the fixation on extreme cases to so-called weak or weaker manifestations that remain subordinate and under-researched, all the time stressing the changeability of nationalisms in their local context and in the course of time. While it is a category more recognisable in a common sense approach than in a strictly quantifiable one, it can be identified and comparatively evaluated by the mobilising ability of the nationalist message in the public sphere.
Using Swiss data from the 2003 International Social Survey Programme (N = 902), this multilevel study combined individual and municipality levels of analysis in the explanation of nationalism, patriotism and exclusionary immigration attitudes. On the individual level, the results show that in line with previous research nationalism (uncritical and blind attachment to the nation) increased exclusionary immigration attitudes, while patriotism (pride in national democratic institutions) was related to greater tolerance towards immigration. On the municipality level, urbanization, socioeconomic status and immigrant proportion (and their interaction effects) were found to affect nationalism, patriotism and immigration attitudes. Nationalist and patriotic forms of national attachment were stronger in German-speaking municipalities than in the French-speaking municipalities. Path analyses further revealed that living in a Swiss-German municipality indirectly led to more negative immigration attitudes through an increase in nationalism. The research is discussed in light of social psychological and political science literature on political attitudes.
This essay reexamines the role of concerns about ethnic and cultural purity in early nineteenth-century Germany. It calls into question both the usual depictions of nationalist attitudes and the explanations used to support them. It first confronts the problem of German self-representation directly and tests the extent to which educated Germans thought themselves to have been pure in their ethnic and cultural origins. It then goes on to investigate how far they thought German culture might need to be protected from present foreign influences or cleansed of past ones. The essay closes with a brief look at changes in attitudes towards cultural purity later in the nineteenth century and sets them into the context of the controversy over the Sonderweg thesis of a special, pathological path of German historical development. It will become clear that German nationalists of the first half of the nineteenth century had a definite appreciation of their mixed ethnic and cultural heritage, and that they were more open to the borrowing of foreign ideas and institutions even in their own day than might have been expected on the basis of the existing literature on German nationalism. This was true alike of the romantic nationalists and of those associated with the more radical and politicized national movement proper. Significantly, each groups' relative openness to the foreign rested on the same basic understanding of organic metaphors and historical change, one emphasizing assimilation rather than autarkic exclusion. If Germans did follow a special path in the development of their national identity, it must have diverged more fully later in the nineteenth century, with changes in German political culture and in the understanding of the culture concept itself.
Despite the relevance of nationalism for politics and intergroup relations, sociologists have devoted surprisingly little attention to the phenomenon in the United States, and historians and political psychologists who do study the United States have limited their focus to specific forms of nationalist sentiment: ethnocultural or civic nationalism, patriotism, or national pride. This article innovates, first, by examining an unusually broad set of measures (from the 2004 GSS) tapping national identification, ethnocultural and civic criteria for national membership, domain-specific national pride, and invidious comparisons to other nations, thus providing a fuller depiction of Americans’ national self-understanding. Second, we use latent class analysis to explore heterogeneity, partitioning the sample into classes characterized by distinctive patterns of attitudes. Conventional distinctions between ethnocultural and civic nationalism describe just about half of the U.S. population and do not account for the unexpectedly low levels of national pride found among respondents who hold restrictive definitions of American nationhood. A subset of primarily younger and well-educated Americans lacks any strong form of patriotic sentiment; a larger class, primarily older and less well educated, embraces every form of nationalist sentiment. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and partisan identification, these classes vary significantly in attitudes toward ethnic minorities, immigration, and national sovereignty. Finally, using comparable data from 1996 and 2012, we find structural continuity and distributional change in national sentiments over a period marked by terrorist attacks, war, economic crisis, and political contention.
This essay critically addresses the various ways in which the civic and ethnic categories have been used and misused in the literature on nations and nationalism. I argue that the problematic treatment of the dichotomy stems from a misunderstanding and misuse of ideal types, and from the common conflation, in the study of nationalism, of ideological representations (discourse), empirical reality (practice), and social scientific analysis (ideal types). If used properly, as value-free constructs that we compare with reality, the ethnic and civic categories are actually quite useful to understand the conceptions of the nation in various cultural, social, political and economic settings. A comparison of the Polish and Québécois cases is used to illustrate the argument.
The multidimensionality of patriotic and nationalistic attitudes and their relationship to nuclear policy opinions were investigated. One hundred and ninety-four college students, 24 high school students, and 21 building contractors were administered the 120-item Patriotism/Nationalism Questionnaire. One hundred and sixty-six of the college students were concurrently administered the 18-item Nuclear Policy Questionnaire. An iterated principal factor analysis was performed on the Patriotism/Nationalism Questionnaire and six factors were extracted for Varimax rotation. The results indicated that the factors were interpretable and distinct. Further analyses indicated the predictive validity of the subscales derived from the six factors for the Nuclear Policy Questionnaire, and exploratory analyses of variance examined the effects of selected demographic variables. The findings support the contention that patriotic/nationalistic attitudes entail multiple dimensions, and that they are differentially related to nuclear policy opinions. We conclude that researchers need to be more attentive to this multidimensionality, especially the distinction between patriotism and nationalism.
The period of heightened nationalism in the United States that followed the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 provided unusual conditions for investigating issues surrounding the distinction between patriotism and nationalism and the relationship between national identification and pluralistic values. In a survey of national identity and social attitudes conducted in late September 2001, two different definitions of national unity were inserted in the introduction to the questionnaire in an attempt to prime activation of different conceptualizations of nationality. Results demonstrated that the priming conditions did have an effect on the pattern of interrelationships among measures of patriotism, nationalism, and tolerance for cultural diversity.
This article examines national identification from a comparative and multilevel perspective. Building on the identity, nationalism, and prejudice literatures, I analyze relationships between societies' economic, political, and cultural characteristics (e.g., development, globalization, democratic governance, militarism, and religious and linguistic diversity), individual characteristics (e.g., socioeconomic status and minority status), and preferences for the content of national identities. I also examine relationships between national identity content and public policy preferences toward immigration, citizenship, assimilation, and foreign policy, generally. I use confirmatory factor analysis and multilevel modeling to analyze country-level data and survey data from 31 countries (from the International Social Survey Program's 2003 National Identity II Module). Results suggest that individual and country characteristics help account for the variable and contested nature of national identification. Moreover, the content of national identity categories has implications for public policy and intergroup relations.
This article challenges the widespread notion that civic nationalism is dominant in Western Europe and North America, whereas ethnic nationalism is dominant in Central and Eastern Europe. After laying out the civic-West/ethnic-East argument, it refines the civic/ethnic dichotomy and deduces the state policies that flow from ethnic, cultural, and civic conceptions of national identity. It then employs survey data from 15 countries to measure mass conceptions of national identity by analyzing attitudes on criteria for national membership and state policy toward assimilation and immigration. The article finds that the civic-West/ethnic-East stereotype, when true, is only weakly true, and according to several measures is false. Finally, several explanations for strong cultural national identities in the West and strong civic national identities in Eastern Europe are given.
Liberal nationalists contend that moderate cultural nationalism promulgates liberal practices, while constitutional patriots stress its illiberal consequences, arguing that attachment to political democratic norms is more inclusive than cultural attachment. Although this issue has been the subject of extensive normative debate, it has rarely been studied empirically. This article addresses the question: How are political and cultural patriotism related to people's perceptions of national membership? To this end, it distinguishes between `political patriotism', which reflects the principles of constitutional patriotism, and `cultural patriotism' as an expression of liberal nationalism. Employing survey data from 15 Western democracies, the study explores the structure of these components of national identity, their empirical distinctiveness and their cross-country comparability. The way(s) in which cultural and political patriotism are related to people's conceptions of the nation is examined by models that analyze their relationship to the criteria of national membership. The results reveal that, virtually ubiquitously, cultural patriotism is positively correlated to ethnic, cultural and political criteria of membership, whereas political patriotism is principally correlated solely to political criteria. To a certain degree, these findings support the assertions made by constitutional patriotism on the one hand and disprove those linked to liberal nationalism on the other.
Some political theorists argue that patriotism differs from nationalism in being compatible with universalist liberalism. The theories offered range from the more cosmopolitan constitutional patriotism of Habermas to more rooted republican versions. Despite their rhetorical effectiveness in certain political situations, none of these variants stands up well to critical analysis, and none succeeds in delivering the promised reconciliation of universal humanitarian principles with limited and particularistic commitments.
Globalisation, fragmentation and the emergence of identity politics challenge the myth of the homogeneous nation-state. They also lend increasing importance to processes of national boundary construction. This article argues that the dichotomy of ethnic and civic nations which traditionally informs much of social science discourse on nations and nationalism is inadequate to analyse how nations distribute membership. The same is true of the Meineckean distinction between cultural and political nations. Both typologies fail to account for some actually existing types of national boundary construction and they suggest that, in any instance, the process of boundary construction is homogeneous, universal and generic. As a consequence of these shortcomings, the ethnickivic dichotomy needs to be revised, by disentangling different organising principles at work in defining the boundaries of ethnic and civic nations: ancestry, race, culture and territory.
This article challenges the assumption that there is an essential difference between a West European ‘civic’ and an East European ‘ethnic’ conceptualisation of the nation. If there were such a distinction, one should be able to trace a distinctive ‘ethnic’ concept of the nation among the populations of East European countries. The article analyses public opinion in three East European countries – Latvia, Poland and Lithuania – using a survey of more than 1,100 respondents in each country. This data suggests, first, that we must question the model of a general East European definition of the nation as an ethnic unit. Second, it is evident that the respondents of each country define the nation differently. For example, Latvian respondents presented a specific concept of the nation – one with clear ethnic undertones. A certain number of the Latvian respondents defined members of the nation according to a single criterion: having Latvian as one's mother tongue. The article also shows how we can deconstruct the concepts of the ethnic versus the civic nation, and thus analyse their separate components. This makes the distinction less rigid, and encourages the discovery of different combinations of ethnic and civic arguments. The result should be more nuanced studies of concepts of the nation and of national belonging.
Treating nationhood as a political claim rather than an ethnocultural fact, this paper asks how "nation" works as a category of practice, a political idiom, a claim. What does it mean to speak " in the name of the nation"? And how should one assess the practice of doing so? Taking issue with the widely held view that " nation" is an anachronistic and indefensible or at least deeply suspect category, the paper sketches a qualified defence of inclusive forms of nationalism and patriotism in the contemporary American context, arguing that they can help develop more robust forms of citizenship, provide support for redistributive social policies, foster the integration of immigrants, and even serve as a check on the development of an aggressively unilateralist foreign policy.
Studies on national identity differentiate between nationalistic attitudes and constructive patriotism (CP) as two more specific expressions of national identity and as theoretically two distinct concepts. After a brief discussion of the theoretical literature, the following questions are examined: (1) Can nationalism and CP be empirically identified as two distinct concepts?; (2) Is their meaning fully or partially invariant across countries?; and (3) Is it possible to compare their means across countries? Data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2003 National Identity Module are utilized to answer these questions in a sample of 34 countries. Items to measure nationalism and CP are chosen based on the literature, and a series of confirmatory factor analyses to test for configural, measurement (metric), and scalar invariance are performed. Full or partial metric invariance is a necessary condition for equivalence of meaning across cultures and for a meaningful comparison of associations with other theoretical constructs. Scalar invariance is a necessary condition for comparison of means across countries. Findings reveal that nationalism and CP emerge as two distinct constructs. However, in some countries, some items that were intended to measure one construct also measure the other construct. Furthermore, configural and metric invariance are found across the full set of 34 countries. Consequently, researchers may now use the ISSP data to study relationships among nationalism, CP, and other theoretical constructs across these nations. However, the analysis did not support scalar invariance, making it problematic for comparing the means of nationalism and CP across countries.
This article analyses ethnic nationalism and liberalism as expressed in the views of Croatians in the aftermath of the 1991–5 war – a war during which ethnic-nationalist rhetoric played a large role. Because the war was part of systemic change in the nation, including the adoption of more democratic and capitalist social formation, we also anticipated economic and political liberalism to be present among a sizeable portion of the population. We provide an analysis of the structural conditions fostering these sentiments, an analysis potentially applicable to a range of societies presently in transition. Based on 1996 survey interviews (N=2,202) conducted throughout Croatia, we show that ethnic nationalism in the Croatian context is more widely shared than is liberalism. The effect of religious fundamentalism, educational attainment and media exposure are as predicted, based on theories of liberalism and nationalism. Wartime experiences and position in the occupational system have a weaker and more mixed influence than hypothesised. Perhaps most importantly, we find that three out of five Croatians embrace both ethnic-national views and views that are distinctly liberal, suggesting that liberal nationalism is now dominant in Croatia. The characteristics of groups holding differing views suggest that recent events and current changes in Croatia bode positively for continued growth of liberal sentiments, but this will not necessarily be at the expense of ethnic nationalism.
The American flag is a frequently displayed national symbol in the United States. Given its high visibility and importance, the present research examines the consequences of exposure to the flag on Americans' sense of national attachment. We hypothesized that the flag would increase patriotism, defined as love and commitment to one's country, and nationalism, defined as a sense of superiority over others. Two experimental studies supported the idea that the American flag increased nationalism, but not necessarily patriotism. The discussion focuses on the practices surrounding the American flag and its implications for the reproduction of American national identity.
Two studies explored a theoretical distinction between “blind” and “constructive” patriotism. Blind patriotism is defined as an attachment to country characterized by unquestioning positive evaluation, staunch allegiance, and intolerance of criticism. Constructive patriotism is defined as an attachment to country characterized by support for questioning and criticism of current group practices that are intended to result in positive change. Items designed to investigate these dimensions of national attachment were administered to two groups of undergraduates in separate surveys. Measures of the two constructs derived from factor analysis of the responses proved to be reliable and valid. Blind patriotism was positively associated with political disengagement, nationalism, perceptions of foreign threat, perceived importance of symbolic behaviors, and selective exposure to pro-U.S. information. In contrast, constructive patriotism was positively associated with multiple indicators of political involvement, including political efficacy, interest, knowledge, and behavior. The implications of this distinction for theory and research on patriotism are discussed.
Cet article fait part de recherches concernant les definitions de nation et nationalisme dans les ex- pays communistes et particulierement en Pologne. A la lumiere de l'ideal-type de Weber, l'A expose les differences de conception des modeles ethnique/civique qui oppose traditionnellement Orient et Occident sur la nation. En revenant sur l'histoire de la Pologne, l'A. se penche sur les representations de la nation-etat et explique la preponderence de la religion dans la formation de l'unite de l'etat-nation polonais