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Conceptions of national identity, turnout and party preference: Evidence from Germany
[journal article]
Abstract As globalisation makes national boundaries both permeable and contested, conflicts over national identity and related policy issues are bound to increase the salience of citizens' individual national identitiesand, consequently, increase their impact on political attitudes and behaviour. We study th... view more
As globalisation makes national boundaries both permeable and contested, conflicts over national identity and related policy issues are bound to increase the salience of citizens' individual national identitiesand, consequently, increase their impact on political attitudes and behaviour. We study the link between ethnocultural and civic dimensions of national identity and turnout and party preferences. After providing a theoretical discussion that integrates conceptions of national identity into established models of turnout and party preference formation, we explore the merit of accounting for these conceptions of national identity in a case study of Germany. Analysing data from two surveys conducted in the period between 2015 and 2017, we show that acceptance of civic criteria of national identity was positively associated with turnout and partisan support for all German parties besides the AfD. Acceptance of ethnocultural criteria was associated with increased support for (centre-) right and decreased support for (centre-) left parties. Some of these patterns differ significantly and in predictable ways between the two data points bracketing the height of the European refugee crisis. These findings suggest that individual conceptions of national identity may be of importance for our understanding turnout decisions and party preferences, but the specific relationships presumably depend on contextual conditions.... view less
Keywords
distinction; party; identification; voting; election; voter turnout; election research; national identity; political attitude; political behavior; political support; case study; Federal Republic of Germany; regression analysis
Classification
Political Process, Elections, Political Sociology, Political Culture
Free Keywords
ethnocultural/civic distinction; party identification; turnout; ZA6804: Wahlkampf-Panel (GLES 2017); ZA5950: International Social Survey Programme: National Identity III - ISSP 2013
Document language
English
Publication Year
2021
Page/Pages
p. 638-655
Journal
Nations and Nationalism, 27 (2021) 3
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1111/nana.12652
ISSN
1469-8129
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed