Multilingual federalism in times of crisis

Abstract

ABSTRACT Language has often been associated with the political culture of citizens and certain core values and expectations in multilingual federations. In times of crisis, the existence and extent of cultural characteristics are particularly relevant for multilingual societies, where cultural differences can fuel political conflict as much as similarities can bring people together. To answer whether and how language is associated with different political attitudes, this article analyses a cross-sectional survey of 7600 citizens in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States. We find that some attitudes toward governance are indeed correlated with language, despite different nation-state contexts. In particular, French-speakers have different preferences for territorial centralization, while the governance attitudes of English-speakers are almost indistinguishable across countries. These findings allow us to refine and reconcile two common assumptions in the literature: that linguistic diversity leads to heterogeneous policy preferences, and that national integration masks cultural differences.