Nations,national identity and prestige

Prestige is a concept or factor that receives relatively little sustained attention in the specialist academic work on nations, national identity and nationalism. It is, however, an implicit influence in much of this literature. Evidence, perspectives and insights, suggesting that prestige is a vital element in the psychological constitution of nations, emerge from a diverse range of sources.     

Nation,state and identity in international sport

The question of eligibility for international sporting representation (ISR) has become increasingly contentious. In this paper we argue that the current ISR regulations are outdated and problematic. Sporting governing bodies ought to ignore citizenship as a criterion for ISR, and instead ISR should be based on a normative account of national belonging which would operate primarily on grounds of early socialisation and long-term residency. This approach would avoid many of the pragmatic and moral pathologies of ISR, and would utilise sports potential in promoting a liberal and progressive understanding of national ties.     

论民族关系与民族经济

民族关系是历史环境、条件的产物和积淀,更是现实环境、条件的一种折射。社会主义市场经济条件下的民族经济是民族关系的基础,它决定民族关系的根本性质和基本特征;发展民族经济应努力协调好民族关系;巩固民族关系必须活跃民族经济。     

Immigration,national identity and political trust in European democracies

This article argues that discrepancies between individual-level conceptualisations of national identity and official government approaches to national identity, as reflected in policies towards migrants, contribute to reduced levels of political trust in Europe. Public opinion data matched with contextual data measuring immigrant incorporation policies are used to investigate this proposition. The findings indicate that individuals who take a more exclusive approach to national identity but live in political systems that are comparatively more welcoming of immigrant incorporation into the national political system tend to be the least trusting of their political systems, and this is closely followed by those individuals who adopt a more inclusive form of identity but live in countries that are relatively less welcoming in their treatment of immigrants. Where individual identity and immigrant incorporation are both inclusive, trust tends to be relatively high.     

Education and national identity in a comparative context

A missing link in the voluminous chain of prior studies on Canadian versus American identity is a comparative analysis of the impact of social studies – especially civics – education on the construction of national identity in these two North American nation-states. This article analyzes curricular documents and secondary-level school textbooks to learn more about how social studies education contributes to constructing a sense of ‘being a Canadian’ versus ‘being an American’ north and south of the 49th parallel.     

Apes and anticitizens: simianization and U.S. national identity discourse

ABSTRACT

Within the literature on public opinion, the mainstream framework is that in-group and out-group attitudes are distinct phenomena, especially with regard to racial attitudes. Elsewhere, in the literature on race and nationalism, scholars have concluded that the United States subscribes to cultural, color-blind racism, that has predominantly replaced biological racism. To explain the context in which white supremacy is again a viable political force in American politics, this paper argues that notions of biological racism that predate the Civil Rights Movement remain potent and continue to underlie cultural racism, and that that these out-group attitudes are not independent of in-group attitudes. This paper focuses on a form of dehumanization-simianization, or the depiction of racial groups (in this case African-Americans) as apes, tracing its origins in Enlightenment-era scientific racism, its historical role in shaping U.S. race and class relations, and as its role in defining American citizenship as hierarchical. Moreover, this paper presents evidence of simianization in contemporary political discourse surrounding African-Americans in the United States. The paper seeks to synthesize the literature on public opinion and that on race and nationalism in order to shed new theoretical light on our thinking about the relationship between in-group and out-group attitude formation.     

论“民族心理”与“民族共同心理素质”的关系

本文针对多年来关于“民族心理”和“民族共同心理素质”两个概念存在许多含糊之处的现实 ,提出“民族心理”和“民族共同心理素质”是同属民族心理学范畴的两个不同的概念。民族心理是特定民族认识、情感、意志等心理过程和能力、气质、性格等个性心理特征的结合体 ;民族心理素质实际上是指民族心理产生的生理条件 ,即神经系统和感觉器官等心理现象产生的先天条件     

Kingdoms,republics and people's democracies: legitimacy and national identity in European constitutions

This article uses constitutional texts to explore the models of national identity which elites in European states have apparently wished to endorse. It analyses three types of constitutions – of constitutional monarchies, democratic republics, and former revolutionary communist states – to establish how the primary principle of legitimacy is identified, and how the concept of ‘the people’ is understood. It concludes that these issues evoke a different response in the three types of constitution, suggesting a surprising survival of the implications of the monarchical-republican distinction, and a brief flowering of at least the principle of international proletarian solidarity in communist constitutions.     

Icon-ising national identity: France and India in comparative perspective

The article embeds the arguments of cultural theory and art history in a political science framework, in order to explain the construction of national identities. In comparing the French national allegory Marianne and her Indian counterpart Bharat Mata, the authors set out to trace the conceptual development of the icons, the psycho-history underlying their ongoing formative processes and their strategic function as signifiers that reinforce national identity. The conceptual prism of icon-ising, as one learns from this comparative analysis is what makes the study of processes of cultural negotiation, and an exploration of their impact on identity-formation possible.     

Towards pluralistic and grassroots national identity: a study of national identity representation by the Kurdish diaspora on social media

ABSTRACT

This study examines the distinctive roles that social media play for the diasporic Kurds in regard to the political and nationhood process. It attempts to understand how the notion of Kurdayeti [Kurdish nationalism] has been affected by the growth of Kurdish social media. It argues: although the Kurdish political activism has been accelerated by the rise of social media and the ethnic identity discussions have become much more visible, the idea of a unified imagined Kurdish nation has been affected by the existing socio-political fragmentations among the Kurds and transformed into a participatory and pluralistic imagined community.     

Religion,truth, national identity and social meaning: The example of Northern Ireland

This article argues that national identity is closely bound up with religion, which in turn is closely bound up with ideas of truth. Different religions will form and transmit different ideas of truth, both moral and cognitive, and transmit them and socialise their members in to holding them. From this a socially exclusive group is formed, which becomes one basis for a nation. This nation becomes morally and cognitively exclusive of non-religious members since they will hold different truths and so cannot be trusted, they cannot be ‘loyal and true’. Ireland and Northern Ireland provide a classic example of this, where Catholic and Protestant were the mediums for transmitting Romantic or Enlightenment versions of the truth and so provided a basis for opposed ideas of nation.     

“民族”与“民族认同”问题研究述评

随着全球化的到来,民族主义开始在各国被激活,“民族认同”问题也就越来越成为热门话题.本文对近30年来关于“民族”与“民族认同”研究的有关概念、英译、概念间的关系、基本理论观点、研究方法等进行了较系统的梳理,并就分析存在的主要问题后,提出今后研究的新思考.     

Whiteness and national identity: teacher discourses in Australian primary schools

The study examines how white teachers talked to children about national identity and cultural diversity by drawing on qualitative research with eight- to 12-year-old students and their teachers from four Australian primary schools with different racial, ethnic and cultural demographics. Despite a range of explicit and implicit approaches that fostered different levels of critique among students, teachers often communicated Australian national identity as commensurate to white racial and Anglo-Australian cultural identity. We identified three main approaches teachers used to talk about national identity and cultural diversity: cultural essentialism, race elision and a quasi-critical approach. We conclude that the wider education system needs to develop a more formal curriculum structure that guides teachers in developing a better awareness of the power of white normativity, and to critically and explicitly counter discourse and practice that centres whiteness as foundational to dominant conceptualisations of national identity.     

Beyond the nation-state Polish national identity and cultural intimacy online

This article analyses the debate on ‘new patriotism’ in a Polish online discussion forum. We study the ways in which national identity is constructed in this setting. Digital communication contributes further to expanding discourse on national identities beyond nation-state borders. We analyse close to 6000 posts from a large Polish Internet discussion forum through the methods of quantitative concept mapping and qualitative close readings. Our results show that patriotism is negotiated beyond strictly national frameworks. It is not merely a question of national interest as it also connects people through a process of establishing and maintaining of cultural intimacy.     

Between Darius and Khomeini: exploring Iran's national identity problematique

Iran, since the advent of its nation-state building process, has struggled to define its national identity in a relevant and resonant way. This article, while acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of Iran's national identity, focuses on its two most profound components: Nationalism and Islamism. It explores how the tensions between these two are at the heart of not only the problem of Iranian identity but also of Persian identity. Examining how these two bases of identity also rely on similarity as well as difference the article argues, through the use of the tool of a problematique, that a coherent Iranian national identity, inclusive of all including ethnic minorities, is not possible until the tensions between Nationalism and Islamism at the heart of Persian identity are resolved.