National identity profiles and support for the European Union
| Author | Julian Aichholzer,Sylvia Kritzinger,Carolina Plescia |
| Date | 01 June 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1465116520980068 |
| Published date | 01 June 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
National identity profiles
and support for the
European Union
Julian Aichholzer
Department of Government, University of Vienna, Vienna,
Austria
Sylvia Kritzinger
Department of Government, University of Vienna, Vienna,
Austria
Carolina Plescia
Department of Government, University of Vienna, Vienna,
Austria
Abstract
Scholars have long recognized that national identity-related factors are among the
strongest predictors of citizens’ attitudes toward the European Union. But while
some find that they reinforce support for the European Union, other scholars show
that national identity undermines its support. In th is article, we aim to disentangle this
puzzle by studying how the national identity profiles of European citizens relate to
support for the European Union across individuals and member states. To this end,
we employ data from the International Social Survey Program 2013, by far the most
extensive collection of survey questions on national identity, and the technique of latent
class analysis. Our results show which specific configurations of national identity entail
support, ambivalence or rejection of the European Union, their antecedents, and their
variation across countries.
Keywords
Cross-national analysis, European Union, ISSP, national identity, typology
Corresponding author:
Sylvia Kritzinger, Department of Government, University of Vienna, Kolingasse 14-16, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
Email: sylvia.kritzinger@univie.ac.at
European Union Politics
2021, Vol. 22(2) 293–315
!The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/1465116520980068
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Introduction
Repeated shocks such as the deep and long-lasting economic crisis and the ‘refugee
crisis’ have brought issues of identity, tolerance, solidarity and cooperation to the
forefront of political, popular and academic debates virtually in all European
countries. One of the consequences of these developments is the surge in what
has been called ‘the politics of nostalgia’ and the growing success of populist
parties across the ideological spectrum that especially target the European
Union (EU) for the malaises of their countries. There are clearly tensions between,
on the one hand, nativist populism whose main goal is to defend the national
identity and, on the other hand, the pluralist essence of Europe where nationalities
with different histories and socio-cultural backgrounds are asked to cooperate and
help each other. In this conflictual climate, citizens’ recalling of the nation and of
national identification challenges the EU as a political project and puts EU sup-
port under pressure (e.g., De Vries, 2018; Lefkofridi and Schmitter, 2015).
Public support for the EU has many sources (see Hobolt and De Vries, 2016),
but one of these sources has received growing attention in recent years: individuals’
attachment to their nation or – more generally – their national identity (e.g., Carey,
2002; Hooghe and Marks, 2009; McLaren, 2002, 2006). National identity has been
interpreted in different ways, yet, strong support has been found for the proposi-
tion that the intensity of feelings toward one’s country (Blank et al., 2001), the level
of attachment to the nation in relation to other territorial entities (Carey, 2002;
Christin and Trechsel, 2002), and the fear of other identities and cultures threat-
ening the dominant culture of the nation (Azrout et al., 2011; Kentmen-Cin and
Erisen, 2017; McLaren, 2002), all relate negatively to support for the EU and
potentially undermine the legitimacy of the EU project (e.g., Easton, 1975;
Lipset, 1960). Over time, however, the literature has come to realize that national
identity and EU support do not necessarily exclude each other (Cram, 2009). This
has meant the recognition that national identity is double-edged (Diez Medrano,
2003) and can both strengthen (Citrin and Sides, 2004) and undermine (Luedtke,
2005) EU support. Thus, national identity seems not to be an obstacle per se for
the support of the European integration process (Hooghe and Marks, 2005, 2009).
But how can national identity both reinforce and undermine support for the EU?
In this article, we aim to disentangle this puzzle and examine the relationship
between national identity and EU support in detail. While national identity is
increasingly debated in the public sphere, its conceptualization and its relation
to EU support remain understudied. This examination goes beyond the one-
dimensional conceptualization of national identity, often employed in the existing
literature. Specifically, in a first step we examine how different dimensions of
national identity – patriotism, chauvinism, ethnic and civic conceptions of nation-
hood – relate to EU support by developing an empirically-based typology of vary-
ing national identity profiles of European citizens. Using these profiles, in a next
step, we investigate variations across countries and study their antecedents. In
keeping with the topic of this special issue (see Clark and Rohrschneider, 2021),
294 European Union Politics 22(2)
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