Forced Transnational Solidarity as a Threat to Internal Cohesion

• In Event: International Economic Integration in Domestic Contestation

Abstract

Cohesion of a human society is based on the willingness to show solidarity towards one another and to punish anti-social behavior. We live in a globalized inter-connected world, where countries cluster in transnational entities like the EU and individuals have to accept this as given. In times of crises we experienced forced solidarity either in the form of financial support or in the form of austerity measures to support a common goal. Despite a potential positive impact, forced solidarity can also have negative ones. This paper poses the question to what extent forced transnational solidarity can have a negative impact on internal societal cohesion. We hypothesize that forced solidarity with a resented out-group breaks internal cohesion. We test our hypothesis within the public-good paradigm, using contributions to a linear public good game as a measure for solidarity. We experimentally vary the beneficiary of cooperative behavior: Greek state, German state, Greek child charity and German child charity. We find that when the beneficiary is the German state --the hypothesized resented out-group-- internal cooperative behavior tends towards minimal contribution to the public good. We interpret this as a breakdown of internal cohesion in the case of forced transnational solidarity. In this treatment, we also observe an elevated degree of anti-social punishment, i.e. the punishment of highly contributing individuals.

Authors

• Alexia Katsanidou, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences

• Roula Nezi, GESIS-Leibniz-Institut for the Social Sciences

• Gerhard Riener, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf

• Ann-Kathrin Reinl, GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences