Between national and constitutional patriotism: framing financial patriotic discourse

Abstract

Research has traditionally tended to associate patriotism with ethnocentrism and nationalism. But the advancing process of globalization led Jurgen Habermas to develop an alternative model--constitutional patriotism. According to this model, citizens should identify themselves with rational, constitutional principles and with a successful democratic political order. This study tests Habermas's concept by examining the only Israeli financial daily--Globes. Since the middle classes have an important role in shaping Habermas's "public sphere," one would expect them to use their organ of communication in order to stimulate constitutional patriotism. However, analysis of the patriotic discourse in this organ of the financial elite between September 1999 and September 2002 disclosed that this is not the case. Instead, Globes' discourse framing gives the same weight to national patriotism as to civic patriotism.