Nationalism and Shared Democratic Identity

• In Event: Nationalism, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy

Abstract

Nationalism is known for its deleterious effect in international relations: when nationalistic sentiments are stimulated, people tend to prefer hawkish foreign policy and call for military aggression. Is there any way to mitigate the negative consequences of nationalism? In this paper, based on the Common In-group Identity Model in social psychology, I claim that among democracies, reminding citizens of a shared identity as “democratic citizens” can be a potential way to weaken the negative impacts of nationalism. Using an original survey experiment conducted in Japan, this study shows that citizens’ tendency to favor a hawkish, hardline policy upon stimulation of nationalistic sentiments vanishes when they are reminded that another country involved in a dispute is a democracy like their own country. A follow-up survey experiment in South Korea further explores the robustness of these findings. This study provides important implications for the study of nationalism and international conflict while shedding new light on the causal mechanisms of the democratic peace theory.

Author

• Jiyoung Ko, Korea University