Minority Status - an Overlooked Source of Continuing European Identity. Evidence from the Issp Surveys 1995, 2003, and 2013.

The outcomes of recent elections and referenda across Europe show that parties emphasizing nationalist topics and issues revolving around such ideas are gaining support. Yet, popular support is not unequivocal, considering that the outcomes in urban areas often differ from those in rural areas. This difference is usually explained by pointing to the economic gains for urban areas and to the fact that individuals with more cosmopolitan views more often reside in cities.

While these explanations may have some merit, we also point to another factor – the status and identities of minorities. Drawing on theories on sociopolitical identities, we hypothesize that minorities are more likely to identify with the European Union, but are less likely to identify with their nation.

The dependent variable is the respondents’ attachment to the nation and Europe, which were included in the 1995, 2003, and 2013 modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). At the national level, we examine the impact of country-level factors such as having a communist past, the duration of EU participation, and the levels of economic development and international integration. At the individual level, we propose hypotheses regarding the effects of individuals’ geopolitical, ethnic, class, and national historical backgrounds on their national and European identity. Methodologically, a multilevel analysis is applied that considers both individual and contextual characteristics as well as changes over time in a single model.

Our contribution speaks to two audiences: Firstly, to scholars who are interested in the individuals’ national and European identities, the changes of these identities over time, and the underlying determinants. Secondly, it speaks to scholars who are interested in the methodological aspects of how to analyze cross-national and time-comparative survey data in unbalanced datasets.