CJO - Abstract - National Identity and Self-Esteem

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Perspectives on Politics (2003), 1 : 515-532 Cambridge University Press
Copyright © 2003 by the American Political Science Association
doi:10.1017.S1537592703000379 (About doi)
Published online by Cambridge University Press 28 Aug 2003
 
Perspectives on Politics (2003), 1:3:515-532 American Political Science Association
Copyright © 2003 by the American Political Science Association
doi:10.1017/S1537592703000379

Articles

National Identity and Self-Esteem

Jeff Spinner-Halev a1 and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse a2
a1 Schlesinger Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (jspinner@unl.edu). He is the author of Surviving Diversity: Religion and Democratic Citizenship and The Boundaries of Citizenship: Race, Ethnicity and Nationality in the Liberal State
a2 Professor of political science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (etheissmorse@unl.edu). She is the coauthor of two award-winning books (With Malice Toward Some and Congress as Public Enemy). Her most recent book, with John Hibbing, is Stealth Democracy: Americans' Beliefs about How Government Should Work. The authors thank Tali Mendelberg, Jennifer Hochschild, Patrice McMahon, and three anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. Elizabeth Theiss-Morse gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the National Science Foundation (SES-0111887) for her work on national identity

Abstract

Is the self-esteem of individuals tied to their nation? If so, is that a good reason to strive for a world of safe, secure nations? Many liberal nationalists answer yes to these questions, but they do so without looking at the large social-psychology literature on groups and self-esteem. We examine the claims of liberal nationalists in light of this literature. The good news is that self-respect 1 and group identity are strongly connected and can lead people to place collective interests above individual interests. The bad news is that the liberal-nationalist assumption that low-status groups have little self-respect and majority groups have it in abundance is mistaken. Perhaps most worrisome is the competitive nature of collective self-esteem: people feel better when their group does better than others. This competitiveness can lead to outright hostility when groups compete for resources and political power. Self-esteem is clearly an unstable foundation for a liberal nation. Although we do not think that problems caused by national identity and self-esteem can be fully solved, we do suggest ways in which they can be contained.


Footnotes

1 We use the terms self-respect and self-esteem interchangeably.


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