Abstract
AbstractEthnic diversity is considered detrimental to national unity, especially if ethnicity is politically mobilized: Ethnic parties in electoral competition in particular are thought to increase the salience of ethnic differences and, with it, ethnic tensions. Yet the individual links of this psychological chain have only been examined cross‐sectionally, and never together. This article employs original longitudinal survey data to simultaneously assess changes in ingroup identification, outgroup aversion, and national identification over the election period within one diverse society: Romania. While ingroup identification does increase, ethnic relations do not worsen. On the contrary, outgroup aversion decreases while national identification increases, for minority and majority Romanian citizens alike. I explain these findings with the common ingroup identity model from social psychology: Elections in ethnically diverse societies may not only increase the salience of ethnic groups but also that of the superordinate, national identity. The findings question the often assumed automaticity of intergroup threat.
Highlights
Ethnic diversity is considered detrimental to national unity, especially if ethnicity is politically mobilized: Ethnic parties in electoral competition in particular are thought to increase the salience of ethnic differences and, with it, ethnic tensions
To test the first set of hypotheses concerning ingroup identification, I use two questions:10 “On a scale of 0–10, how important is being [Romanian/Hungarian] for you personally?” “I am going to ask you to use a scale like a thermometer to express your evaluation of members of this group. 100 degrees means you typically evaluate them to be extremely favorable, 50 degrees means neither favorable nor unfavorable, and 0 degrees means extremely unfavorable.”
The day is not perceived as a holiday by Hungarians, as it signifies the unification of Transylvania and Romania in 1918 and to them represents a loss of power; rather than a day of celebration, it is a “day of mourning” (Fox 2006, 223)
Summary
Ethnic diversity is considered detrimental to national unity, especially if ethnicity is politically mobilized: Ethnic parties in electoral competition in particular are thought to increase the salience of ethnic differences and, with it, ethnic tensions. Ethnic parties in particular are viewed with concern, as they are thought to politicize ethnic differences in policy and in public discourse (Brancati 2008; Cederman, Gleditsch, and Hug 2012; Rabushka and Shepsle 1972; Sambanis and Shayo 2013) This politicization raises the salience of ethnic difference in the population, increasing ingroup cohesion and outgroup rivalry and undermining national unity (see Fearon and Laitin 2000; Lieberman and Singh 2012). Higashijima and Nakai (2016) follow a similar empirical strategy in the Baltic states and conclude that ethnic identification strengthens with electoral mobilization Both studies examine ingroup identification only, not allowing inferences to changes in ethnic relations. I make the often implicitly assumed links between ethnic politicization, identification, and ethnic relations
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