Abstract
This article aims to elucidate the effects of the Great Recession and the retrenchment of welfare on national identity in several European countries. While different authors have observed that good economic performance, redistribution, and the growth of welfare strengthen countries as political communities of solidarity, there is much less empirical evidence regarding the consequences of an economic crisis for national identity. To investigate these consequences, we focus on a set of countries where the 2008 Great Recession resulted in different impacts, namely, Germany and four countries in Southern Europe (Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece). We use secondary quantitative data from Eurobarometer surveys to test aggregated and individual hypotheses relating to both the size and direction of the Great Recession’s effects on national identity. Our results suggest that the roles and impacts of economic variables may be different depending on the relative economic performance of a country within its own context. It seems easier to confirm that good economic performance, in relative terms, might strengthen national identity than proving that poor economic performance will weaken national identity. Even if no definitive empirical evidence can be given at this point, our data suggest a rationalization or compensation mechanism such that citizens look for where to anchor their strong national identities after they have decided on them. If an economy is performing well, then it would become a good anchorage for holding a strong national identity; however, if an economy is not performing well, then economic factors will cease to be a fundamental element for national identity holders.
Highlights
Different authors have identified the positive connections between national economies and national identities (Rodríguez-Pose and Sandall 2008; Campbell and Hall 2009), in which states, portraying themselves as agents of equitable development, have fostered national identities via ideological legitimation
Our conclusions are centered around three hypotheses that relate national identity to economic changes, both at the aggregate level and the individual level
(1990) and Sears and Funk (1999), our findings suggest that identities, once acquired, are stable and resistant to change, even in the context of an economic crisis
Summary
Different authors have identified the positive connections between national economies and national identities (Rodríguez-Pose and Sandall 2008; Campbell and Hall 2009), in which states, portraying themselves as agents of equitable development, have fostered national identities via ideological legitimation. Unemployment trends clearly distinguish Germany from the selected Southern European countries These trends show a pronounced increasing trend in the percentage of unemployment linked to the economic crisis, while in Germany, unemployment decreased during the observed period. In our five countries, the electoral punishment of traditional parties and support for challenger or niche parties are obvious in the aftermath of the Great Recession (Hobolt and Tilley 2016; Kriesi 2012, 2014; Freire et al 2014) Notable examples of this include Siriza and Golden Dawn in Greece (Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou 2013), Beppe Grillo’s M5 in Italy (Baldini 2013; Bordignon and Ceccarini 2013), Podemos in Spain (Cordero and Montero 2015), the contest of the folkloristic candidate Manuel Coelho in the Portuguese presidential elections of 2011. We review the concept of national identity as our dependent variable, types of identity, as this has some importance for our hypotheses; second, we examine the literature on the relationship between national identity and economy, develop our working hypotheses, explain our variable operationalization, and, present our analysis and tentative conclusions
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