National identity: A comparison of Sweden, Germany and Australia

Abstract

This article compares three countries with different policy regimes in the area of citizenship and immigration, namely Australia, Germany and Sweden. Australia is here defined as multicultural, Germany as ‘ethnic’ and Sweden as semi‐multicultural. The aim is to see, first, if differences in policy regimes are reflected in the attitudes of national identity amongst the citizens, and second, to assess the effects different forms of national identity have on xenophobia. The conclusions are, first, that in spite of different policy regimes, national identity is constituted in similar ways in the three countries and, second, that the common subdivision of national identity into an ‘ethnic’ and a civic part may warrant reconsideration. Third, different types of national identity appear to affect xenophobia similarly in all the three countries under examination, namely in a way which supports the common assumption that civic identities are preferable to ethnic ones.