What kind of nationalism makes people happy?
Does being proud of your country make you happy? An impossible question with an infinite number of answers. While previous research has concluded that feeling good about your country can be linked to feeling happy about your own life, researchers Tim Reeskens, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium and Matthew Wright, a political scientist from American University in Washington, DC wanted to delve deeper into the topic and set out to find out the whole story behind happiness and nationalism. Matthew Wright says: 'It's fine to say pride in your country makes you happy. But what kind of pride are we talking about? That turns out to make a lot of difference.' The term nationalism can encompass many strands of ideology; from believing your country is superior to all other countries, to 'civic' nationalism, to protecting a state from another state's imposed power. To investigate further, the authors analysed responses of 40,677 individuals from 31 countries to 4 key questions included in a 2008 cross-national European Values Study, a large-scale, cross-national and longitudinal survey research programme that investigates basic human values. It provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes, values and opinions of citizens all over Europe. The study is a unique research project on how Europeans think about life, family, work, religion, politics and society. Presenting their findings in the journal Psychological Science, the authors divide national pride into two distinct strands. 'Ethnic' nationalism, often expressed in racial or religious terms, sees ancestry as the key social boundary defining the collective national 'us'. 'Civic' nationalism on the other hand is more about creating an inclusive society, requiring only respect for a country's institutions and laws for belonging. Whilst ethnic nationalism often employs a closed and antagonistic approach to minorities or immigrants, civic nationalism, in principle anyway, is more open to building bridges between different communities and opening up borders to immigrants. Out of the survey question responses they looked at, one question assessed 'subjective well being', indicated by general satisfaction with life, and another measured national pride. The other two indicated ethnic and civic national boundaries by asking respondents to rate the importance of respect for laws and institutions, and how important their ancestry was to them. Like the previous studies they found that people who exhibited more national pride had greater well-being. But Reeskens and Wright's findings also show that it was the civic nationalists who were on the whole happier, with even the proudest ethnic nationalists' well-being barely surpassing that of people with the lowest level of civic pride. By looking at how people define their pride we can make predictions as to how they might react as situations change. With extreme nationalist parties once again on the rise in Europe, studies like these are essential for getting to grips with complex political ideologies and for defining exactly what kind of nationalism is a desirable one. Wright believes that the findings give clues to what popular responses we might expect to trends such as millions of people crossing borders from poorer to wealthier countries looking for work or seeking refuge from war or political repression. 'It's unclear what the political implications of the happiness measure are - though unhappy citizens could demand many politically dangerous, xenophobic responses. Ethnic nationalists, proud or not, appear relatively less happy to begin with and more likely to lead the charge as their nation diversifies around them.'For more information, please visit: Association for Psychological Science: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/
Countries
Belgium, United States