National Identity and Political Power

Among the liberal elites in the West, nationalism's bad reputation is just going up. They link nationalism with white primacy, new immigration resistance policies in many Western countries, the revival of economic protection, or American President Donald Trump's nonliberal populism.

But nationalism also has a positive side. National identities can encourage solidarity among citizens and can cause individuals to sacrifice personal income for the common good. Patriotic individuals, for example, are less likely to cheat on taxes, and politicians with a strong commitment to national issues are more focused on providing public goods such as infrastructure, health care, and schooling and less inclined to the narrow interests of their base. Particularly for developing countries, facing political integration, building a sense of national solidarity over and beyond ethnic or regional identities is fun.

A question of importance for academics and policymakers, thus, is: Why do citizens develop a stronger relationship with the nation in some countries than in some other countries? Why are Americans, Ghanaians, and Thai more patriotic than Germans or Taiwanese? Huh, why?

Researchers have offered a host of explanations, including the country's ethnic diversity [the more homogenous countries are seen as more nationalist than those with more diversity], integration into the global economy [with more nationalism in globalized countries], or including the consequences of war. My research shows another explanation: people identify themselves with the country when they see their ethnic group represented in the national government. Political representation, in other words, suggests national identification in countries of diversity, as much as in homogenic ones.

KOCLAVIVED ER

Why is representation so important for national identification? Consider politics as a network of alliances: individuals are people of certain organisations, such as the professional nurses' association, which develop alliances with other organisations Associations for Nurses can join that of doctors to create a national umbrella for workers' health care. These alliances could thus be linked to political parties and ultimately to the government. Within these coalition networks, favours and resources are exchanged: for example, a party could promise to implement specific policies for workers' healthcare in exchange for their votes.

In time, individuals who have become part of alliances with each other and who belong to the same network will develop a sense of community and common purpose. This forms the basis for a group identity meaning, such as those defined by ethnic, religious, or professional lines.

The same applies to national identities: the stronger the net that connects citizens to the national government, the more citizens will embrace the idea of a nation as a community of scattered solidarity and a political fate. Conversely, groups that are systematically excluded from these networks will develop their separate identities, often defined in ethnic or racial terms. They will view the nation as a lesser category of meaning and will be less identified with it.

To illustrate, imagine a survey in the United States in 1900 that asks citizens how proud they are of their country. It may be expected that the approximately-Americans, released from slavery a generation ago, but still without equal rights or without political representation, would feel less patriotic than the white population in general. Conversely, it could be expected that Angloxon Protestants, who since then dominated the country's politics, would express more national pride than politically marginalized whites, such as Irish and Italians.

PU STATES AND CRENARIA

To more systematically examine the relationship between political power and national identity, I have combined hundreds of surveys made by various research organisations in the world. In all, I gathered, with a team of researchers' assistants, the responses of more than 750 thousand individuals from 132 countries, summed up in 582 representatives polling in different years from 1980 onward. These countries have 92% of the world's population.

All polls contained the same question: “How proud are you with your nation?” Many were also asked about the ethnic background of the respondents, such as “azico-Americans” in the United States, “the traditionally speaking” in Bulgaria, Sikhs in India, and Uighur in China. This allowed me to link the survey's responses to the listed data set where ethnic groups are represented in the executive government [such as the presidency, prime minister and cabinet] in each country and every year; when they are excluded from political power, as were Americans after the civil rights revolution and as is the Roma community disfellowshipped in Eastern Europe today.

The statistical analysis produced results consisting of the idea that national identification is strictly the function of political representation. The greater the distribution of the population that is not represented in the executive government, the less pride among the citizens of that nation.

In extreme cases, ruling coalitions consist in a small demographic minority. It is the case with Syria, where the Muslims dominate the executive government, the military, and the secret service despite making up only 12% of the population. In such places, members of disfellowshipped ethnic groups are less identified with the nation than members of groups that have captured the state. And indeed, the Alavites are evidently more proud as Syrians than Kurds or saints. Conversely, in countries more involved as Switzerland, where three major language groups [German, French, and Italian - speaking] are represented at the highest levels of government, members of all groups feel proud of their country. French - speaking and Italian minority speakers are even more proud to be Swiss than German - speaking majority.

As can be expected, the groups that display less national pride are those who are actively discriminated against by political elites and society. Examples include the Roma community in Eastern Europe, Russians in Latvia and Muslims in Serbia. And contrary to what it says that most people feel more patriotic than minorities, the data suggests that political representation, not demographic size, is what matters. Ruling minorities, such as Arabs in Jordan, show more national pride than most, such as the Jordan. Ethnic Albanians in Albania. On the other hand, the large marginalised groups of ethnic Russians in Latvia, for example, are very little identified with the nation by the small groups, such as. Roma. And in the end, the most diverse populations are not less proud of their nation than are citizens of homogenous countries. What matters is not diversity about that But the way it relates to political representation and power.

National pride, however, does not remain static over time. In keeping with my argument, I learned that groups would identify more positively with the nation when they gain more power and less positive if they lost it. White people in the United States, for example, became less proud of their nation after Barack Obama's election in 2008, and so it was with the Taiwanese, whose grandparents were born on the island after Kuomintang, whose leadership originated from China, returning to power in 2008. In South Africa, black and Asian citizens expressed more national pride after the end of the apartheid, while the trend for whites, following the brief blow in pride immediately after the transition, went in the opposite direction.

If citizens are identified with the nation, it also depends on their assessment of the future. If they cannot believe that they will continue to be represented in the national government, they will tend to be less proud of their nation. This is especially the case in countries with civil war history . . past conflicts make it more difficult for elites to establish stable coalitions and trust each other. In countries with stories of ethnic conflict, such as Myanmar, the ordinary citizen is thus less proud than in peaceful countries like Ghana. The same applies to members of specific subnational groups, such as Iraqi Kurds, who have fought many violent conflicts with Baghdad over the past generation.

Belief in future representation is also reduced if the country is guided by a multiethnic coalition, both in Belgium and Iraq after Saddam Hussein's fall. Such coalitions are less stable than monopolitical regimes. In such situations, individuals may worry whether their groups will still be represented in the national government in the future or whether elites from the other ethnic group will push their representatives out of power.

E BUILDED FOR HAPPINESS

If political representation promotes national identification, what does this mean for nation building policies? Citizens will not embrace the nation as a community of widespread solidarity unless they establish beneficial relations with the state. Politics designed to foster a sense of national belonging in divided societies should thus focus on issues of power, representation and governance. The distribution of power remains the most effective tool for fostering national identity, even if coalition regimes face confidence building challenges. South Africa's post-apartheid regime, for example, managed to integrate white people who had dominated a coalition including all major African groups under the umbrella of the African National Congress. And indeed, despite hostile feelings, the sense of a common national goal has been distributed among citizens.

Promoting power distribution agreements, as the United States did in Ireland and tried to do in Iraq, remains the best foreign policy to help build the nation. International development agencies must strengthen the capacity of national governments to distribute public goods and thus strengthen alliances among citizens a better thing than handing over these duties to nongovernmental organisations or private companies.

Conversely, simple nationalist propaganda conveyed through textbooks or through hymns, public rituals, and similar is less effective than many politicians around the world believe. One extreme example is the promotion of “banus” in South Africa, black countries that failed to instill the sense of national pride in their citizens. Symbols are not enough for citizens to develop a strong sense of the national community if this is not followed by political representation and effective integration into power structures. Political substances are more important in building the nation than symbolic forms. /ForeignAffairs/Transform into Albanian: Periscope