Inciting Nationalism: The Domestic and International Contexts of Status Rhetoric

• In Event: Status and the Rise of China

Abstract

What prompts leaders to employ nationalist rhetoric when they do? Past scholarship has suggested that leaders engage in rhetoric intended to arouse nationalist sentiment in order to divert national attention away from unpopular domestic conditions. Others have argued that nationalist narratives are more likely to arise in response to international conflict. We hypothesize that leaders are likely to employ nationalist rhetoric when their country recovers the previously lost material symbols of high status. We assess the validity of these explanations using data we collect from the People’s Daily over the period 1946 to 2011. The data codes the timing of articles in the People’s Daily that include references to two nationalist rhetoric—national humiliation and rejuvenation. We assess the relationship in time between these references and China’s international and domestic conditions. We find strong evidence that elites are more likely to employ references to past humiliations when they seek to divert the domestic populace, but also that they are more likely to do so once they have restored some degree of national confidence through the recovery of material symbols of past status.

Authors

• Joslyn N. Barnhart, Wesleyan University

• Jiyoung Ko, Bates College