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

Kenneth Harttgen and Matthias Opfinger

No 107-2012, AICCON Working Papers from Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit

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: Religious Diversity; National Identity; Common Values (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J15 O10 Z12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2012-06-22
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem, nep-evo and nep-soc
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.aiccon.it/file/convdoc/wp107.pdf Full text (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.aiccon.it/file/convdoc/wp107.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://www.aiccon.it/file/convdoc/wp107.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:ris:aiccon:2012_107

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in AICCON Working Papers from Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Paolo Venturi ().