Sub-state Nationalism and Trust in Elites in Spain and the United Kingdom

• In Event: National Identity and its Consequences in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

In scholarly journals as well as in the popular press, the implications of surging state nationalism in Western Europe have been explored at great length. Yet in spite of the unprecedented successes of regionalist parties in the past decade, far less attention has been paid to the consequences of sub-state nationalism. Influential scholarship has previously associated the mobilization of identity alternatively with distrust of outsiders or greater interpersonal trust among insiders. In this paper, I argue instead that the mobilization of sub-state identity is most strongly associated with greater trust in elites with a shared identity. I test this argument through a survey experiment embedded in original surveys run in Spain and the United Kingdom. The differential trust in elites associated with sub-state nationalism has important implications for short-term sustainability of national policy making, and with the long-term legitimation of the state itself.

Author

• Elissa Berwick, McGill University