Society and Social Identities

• Society: a collection of people bound by shared institutions that define how human relations should be conducted

• Social identity: a sense of who a person is based on membership in social groups

I. Ethnic Identity

Defining Ethnicity

• Ethnic identity is…

  • A set of specific attributes and societal institutions that make one group of people culturally different from others.

  • Often based on customs, language, religion, or other factors.

  • Ascriptive, generally assigned at birth.

  • Not inherently political.

• **Ethnic identity/ethnicity: (**specific) attributes and societal institutions that make one group of people culturally distinct from others.

  • Relevant social institutions may include language, religion, geographic location, customs, appearance, and history, among others.

  • Ascription: people are born into these identities, and it remains fairly stable throughout life.

  • However, borders between ethnic groups are often more “blurry” than we think!

Examples and Markers

• Bosnia: Croats, Serbs, and Muslims

  • Main marker: religion

• Rwanda: Hutu and Tutsi

  • Main marker: none discernible

II. National Identity

Defining a Nation

• National identity is…

  • A sense of belonging to a nation (a group that desires self-government through an independent state) and a belief in its political aspirations.

  • Often (but not always) derived from ethnic identity.

  • inherently political.

  • The basis for nationalism: pride in one’s people and the belief that they have a unique political destiny

Nations and Nationalism

• Nation: a group that desires self-government, often through an independent state

• National identity: an institution that binds people together through common political aspirations

• Nationalism: pride in one’s people and the belief that they have a unique political destiny

Varieties of nationalism

• Civic Nationalism: ‘the state precedes the nation’, i.e. a sense of national self-consciousness develops with the formation of the state

• Ethnic Nationalism: ‘the nation precedes the state’, i.e. the state is carved around already existing boundaries, and others are excluded

• Ethnocentric? Many argue these delineations were made to pathologize non-Western states.

Examples of Nations

Nations in the United States

• Is there an American “nation”?

• Native American tribes

  • Cherokee Nation

• Others?

Nations in other countries

• United Kingdom

  • Scottish independence

  • Irish Republicans

• Spain

  • Catalans

• Turkey

  • Kurds

III. Citizenship and Patriotism

• Citizenship is…

  • An individual’s relation to the state; citizens swear allegiance to the state, and the state, in turn, provides certain benefits

  • Purely political and thus more easily changed than ethnic or national identity

  • The basis for patriotism: pride in one’s state and citizenship

State-Based Identities

• Citizenship: an individual’s or group’s relation to the state; citizens swear allegiance to that state, and the state in return is obligated to provide rights to those citizens

• Patriotism: pride in one’s state

• Citizenship does not guarantee patriotism.

What is the Difference between

• Nationalism

  • Pride in your people and a desire for statehood

  • Group might/might not have a state

  • Group may not like the current state very much

• Patriotism

  • Pride in your state

  • Group has a state

  • Individuals may have weaker attachments to ethnic/national identities

National Identity, Immigration, and the Populist Challenge

• Growing sentiment in France that the policy of laicité, or secularism, is threatened by some cultural practices associated with its Muslim minority, such as the wearing of face veils

• The national identity debate was central to the UK’s vote to leave the European Union (Brexit); immigration was a top issue

• U.S. President Donald Trump made immigration a major focus of his campaign, disparaging immigrants from Latin America and pledging to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border

• A steep number of immigrants fleeing the civil war in Syria have ignited debate in Germany, long avoided since WWII, about threats to national identity

IV. Ethnic Identity, National Identity, and Citizenship: Origins and Persistence

Origins of the nation and/or ethnic group

• Primordialism: the nation originates in common culture and heritage, i.e. membership is assigned (or ought to be) at birth

• Instrumentalism: the nations originate from groups coming together to gain advantages in competing for scarce resources

• Constructivism: the nation is constructed through iterations of social practice that bring people together

Where Do Identities Come From? And nation-states

• Many identities emerged alongside the modern state.

  • Increased commerce, urbanization

  • New forms of social interactions

  • New institutions

• State leaders often saw identity creation as a means of reinforcing their power.

• Nation-state: A sovereign state encompassing one dominant nation that it claims to embody and represent

Ethnicities, Nations, or Citizens

• Some nations are divided

  • North and South Korea

• Many states have multiple nations

  • United Kingdom, Nigeria

• Some nations lack states of their own

  • Palestinians, Kurds

• Not all ethnicities are nations, and not all nations are countries.

• A few countries are dominated by a single ethnic group.

  • Japan

  • Egypt

Ethnic and National Conflict

• Ethnic conflict: conflict between ethnic groups that struggle to achieve certain political or economic goals at each other’s expense

• National conflict: conflict between groups who seek to gain (or prevent the other from gaining) sovereignty

Why Does Ethnic and National Conflict Occur?

• Views of Ethnic and National Conflict

  • Societal explanations emphasize such issues as ethnic heterogeneity.

  • Economic explanations emphasize poverty and the struggle for natural or other resources.

  • Political explanations emphasize state capacity or autonomy and the type of regime.

Nigeria’s Identity Conflicts

• All three sources combine to create conflict.

  • Extreme divisions

  • Political exclusion and corruption

  • Income inequality

  • Conflict over oil revenues

V. Political Attitudes and Political Ideology

Definitions: Political Attitudes

• Political Attitudes are…

  • Concerned with the speed and methods of political change.

  • Generally classified as radical, liberal, conservative, or reactionary.

  • Particularistic: relative to the specific context of a given country. “Radical” in one country may be “conservative” in another.

  • Distinct from political ideologies.

Political Attitudes: A Broad Introduction

• Political attitudes: views regarding the necessary pace and scope of change in the balance between freedom and equality

• Major categories:

  • Radicals prefer large institutional change.

  • Liberals prefer changes within institutions.

  • Conservatives are skeptical of change and favor the status quo.

  • Reactionaries seek to restore political, social, and economic institutions (real or imaginary).

On the Left

• Radicals

  • Favor dramatic, often revolutionary change to the existing political, social, or economic order

  • Believe that old institutions are broken and must be replaced

  • Example: Tunisia’s Arab Spring protestors

• Liberals

  • Favor gradual, evolutionary change

  • Believe that existing institutions can create positive change

  • Example: U.S. Democrats

On the Right

• Conservatives

  • Skeptical of change; value continuity of institutions

    • Traditions that work should be respected

  • Fear change will have unintended effects

  • Example: Germany’s Christian Democrats

• Reactionaries

  • View current orders as fundamentally unacceptable

  • Seek to return to “older” systems

    • Sometimes a fictional past

  • Example: “Make America Great Again”

Political attitudes’ meaning

• The meaning of “conservative” varies:

  • A conservative attitude favors existing institutions and traditions, and resists change.

  • In some (but not all!) countries, conservative parties are identified with the right of the political spectrum.

  • Supporting current institutions can mean different things in different countries:

    • In the United Kingdom, many members of the Conservative Party campaigned and voted for Brexit.

    • In Romania, the Conservative Party supports European integration and EU membership.

Competing Views: The Continuum

• Radicals are extreme liberals; reactionaries are extreme conservatives.

• Helps explain why, in the United States, “liberal” sometimes means “left-wing.”

Competing Views: The Circle

• Radicals and reactionaries want dramatic change.

  • more willing to engage in violence.

• Liberals and conservatives support existing institutions.

Definitions: Political Ideologies

• Political ideologies are…

  • Sets of political values regarding the fundamental goals of politics.

  • Exemplified by five dominant modern ideologies: liberalism, communism, social democracy, fascism, and anarchism.

  • Universalistic: not specific to one country or time.

  • Distinct from political attitudes.

Political Ideology: A Broad Introduction

• Political ideologies: basic values held by an individual about the fundamental goals of politics or the ideal balance of freedom and equality

• A few types (and their goals):

  • Liberalism: individual freedom

  • Communism: economic equality

  • Social democracy/socialism: balance between freedom and equality

  • Fascism: advancement of a superior group or race

  • Anarchism: elimination of state power

Liberalism

• Limits state’s role in politics, society, and economy

• People, as individuals, pursue their own interests.

• Inspires liberal democracy

• A system of political, social, and economic liberties, supported by competition, participation, and contestation

Different Meanings of the Term Liberalism

• As a political attitude: favoring slow, evolutionary change

• As a political ideology outside North America: favoring free markets and individualism, accepting greater inequality.

• As a political ideology in North America: favoring a greater state role in limiting inequality; many outside the region would call this ideology “social democracy.”

• As a political-economic system: favoring a limited state role in the economy.

Communism

• Rejects the idea that personal freedom will ensure prosperity for the majority.

• State’s role is to ensure wealth is shared.

  • No private property

• Inspired twentieth-century communist states

  • Examples: Soviet Union, China, Cuba

Social Democracy

• Balances freedom and equality

  • Strong markets and role for private ownership

  • Strong state to regulate the industry and engage in social spending

• Inspires many modern European states

  • Examples: Germany and the Scandinavian states

Fascism

• Rejects the ideas of freedom and equality

• Believes in strict social hierarchies and inherent inequalities

  • Explicitly racist or ethnocentric

• Inspired Fascist regimes, including Nazi Germany

  • Reemerging with far-right parties?

Anarchism

• Views state as a threat to freedom and equality

  • Believes eliminating the state and private property would achieve both freedom and equality

• Inspired…no states

Why has the United States Resisted Social Democracy?

• The Democratic Party favors some social-democratic values, though they fall short on their European counterparts.

• Possible reasons for resistance:

  • Preference for individual liberty over state power leads to skepticism of state-supported equality

  • Weak working-class solidarity needed for a strong, labor-oriented, social-democratic party

• Growing inequality in the US could lead to an increase in support for social-democratic policies

Ideology and Political Attitudes in North America

VI. Religion, Fundamentalism, and the Crisis of Identity

A Return to Religion?

• Many ideologies considered secular: an alternative to religion

  • Modern politics shift to “the privatization of religion”

• Why the rejection of secularism in the last few decades?

  • Secular ideologies struggle with economic challenges, demographic shifts, and social changes.

  • Secularism is weakly institutionalized in some countries.

Fundamentalism: A Crisis of Identity

• Fundamentalism: an ideology that seeks to make faith the sovereign authority

• What it is:

  • A belief that seeks to unite religion and the state

    • Create a theocracy

  • Modern (not premodern) phenomena resulting from spiritual malaise

  • Can be radical, reactionary, or a combination

  • Can be from any religion

VII. Political Culture

Culture versus Political Culture

• Culture: basic institutions that define a society

  • Road map to organize personal and social lives

• Political culture: basic norms of political activity in a society

  • Road map to organize public/political life

Defining Political Culture

• Political Culture is…

  • The basic norms for political activity in a society.

  • A determining factor in what ideologies will dominate a country’s political regime.

  • Unique to a given country or group.

  • Distinct from political attitudes and ideologies.

Two Views of Political Culture

• Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations

  • Culture as religiously based

  • Culture as permanent/unchanging

• Inglehart’s World Values Survey

  • Major divisions:

    • Traditional versus secular-rational

    • Survival versus self-expression

  • Culture (values) varies across/within societies

  • Culture (values) change

Values

• Economic development shifts some societal values—but other social values are more resistant to change.

VIII. In Sum: Society and Politics

• Ethnic identity and national identity are different but powerful identities.

• Citizenship defines an individual’s relationship with the state.

• Most modern identities have developed alongside the modern state.

• Ethnic or national differences may lead to the conflict under certain conditions.

• With regard to attitudes, radicals, liberals, conservatives, and reactionaries differ in their view toward established institutions.

• With regard to ideology, liberals, communists, social democrats, fascists, anarchists, and fundamentalists prioritize different policy goals.

• Cultural values shape a society’s ideology and attitudes and are resistant (but not immune) to change over time.

Key Terms

1. Society - complex human organization, a collection of people bound by shared institutions that define how human relations should be conducted

2. Ethnic identity - specific attributes and societal institutions that make one group of people culturally different from others

3. Nation - a group that desires self-government through an independent state

4. National identity - a sense of belonging to a nation and a belief in its political aspirations

5. Nationalism - pride in one’s people and the belief that they have a unique political destiny

6. Citizenship - an individual’s relationship to the state, wherein citizens swear allegiance to that state and the state in return is obligated to provide rights to those citizens.

7. Patriotism - pride in one’s state

8. Nation-state - a state encompassing one dominant nation that it claims to embody and represent

9. Ethnic conflict - a conflict in which different ethnic groups struggle to achieve certain political or economic goals at each other’s expense

10. National conflict - a conflict in which one or more groups within a country develop clear aspirations for political independence, clashing with others as a result

11. Political attitudes - description of one’s views regarding the speed and methods with which political changes should take place in a given society

12. Radicals - those with a political attitude that favors dramatic, often revolutionary change

13. Liberals - those with a political attitude that favors evolutionary change and believes that existing institutions can be instruments of positive change

14. Conservatives - those with a political attitude that is skeptical of change and supports the current order

15. Reactionaries - those who seek to restore the institutions of a real or an imagined earlier order

16. Political ideology - the basic values held by an individual about the fundamental goals of politics or the ideal balance of freedom and equality

17. Liberalism - a political attitude that favors evolutionary transformation; an ideology and political system that favors a limited state role in society and the economy, and places a high priority on individual political and economic freedom

18. Liberal democracy - a political system that promotes participation, competition, and liberty and emphasizes individual freedom and civil rights

19. Communism - a political-economic system in which all wealth and property are shared so as to eliminate exploitation, oppression, and, ultimately, the need for political institutions such as the state

20. Social democracy - a political-economic system in which freedom and equality are balanced through the state’s management of the economy and the provision of social expenditures

21. Fascism - a political ideology that asserts the superiority and inferiority of different groups of people and stresses a low degree of both freedom and equality in order to achieve a powerful state

22. Anarchism - a political ideology that stresses the elimination of the state and private property as a way to achieve both freedom and equality for all

23. Fundamentalism - a view of religion as absolute and inerrant that should be legally enforced by making faith the sovereign authority

24. Culture - basic institutions that define a society

25. Political culture - the basic norms for political activity in a society