In the Nation We Trust: National Identity as a Substitute for Religion

Kenneth Harttgen and Matthias Opfinger

Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät

Abstract: We construct an index for national identity using information from the World Values Survey on peoples’ attitudes concerning politics and to the state itself. We then analyze the relationship between our new measure of national identity and social heterogeneity. The results indicate that religious diversity is significantly and positively related to national identity, whereas other variables proxying social heterogeneity are not. We argue that national identity is a substitute for religion. At high levels of religious diversity people do not identify with their religious group. They search other objects of identification offering common values and norms. Hence, people identify at the national level. Furthermore, democratic institutions and mobility throughout the country affect national identity positively.

Keywords: National Identity; Social Heterogeneity; Religious Diversity; Common Beliefs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 O1 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo and nep-soc
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://diskussionspapiere.wiwi.uni-hannover.de/pdf_bib/dp-491.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: In the Nation We Trust: National Identity as a Substitute for Religion (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-491

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Heidrich, Christian ().