Making Nations Great Again: National Narcissism and the Left, the Right, and the Extreme in the European Context

Abstract

Considering current world politics, investigating people’s tendency to believe in the greatness of their nation contingent on external validation seems ever so relevant. Thus, we examined the relationship between the direction and extremity of political orientation and national narcissism (NN) on European quota-representative samples (N = 15,882). Although the relationships between ideological extremity and NN were established, they were much weaker than the positive relationship between political orientation and NN. Testing for model invariance across Western and Eastern European samples suggested differences in the predictive strength of political orientation on NN, with a weaker association in Eastern Europe. Further analyses, including a quadratic examination of political ideology’s relation to NN, supported the rigidity-of-the-right hypothesis, highlighting the stronger presence of NN among right-leaning individuals. This pattern persisted despite varying European socio-cultural backgrounds, suggesting a transcultural aspect of NN within the political right spectrum. Our research underscores the importance of considering socio-political context when assessing the interplay between political ideology and NN, setting a starting point for further, more nuanced research.