National identity


National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language".
National identity comprises both political and cultural elements. As a collective phenomenon, it can arise from the presence of "common points" in people's daily lives: national symbols, language, the nation's history, national consciousness, and cultural artifacts. Subjectively, it is a feeling one shares with a group of people about a nation, regardless of one's legal citizenship status. In psychological terms, it is defined as an "awareness of difference", a "feeling and recognition of 'we' and 'they'". National identity can incorporate the population, as well as diaspora, of multi-ethnic states and societies that have a shared sense of common identity. Hyphenated ethnicities are examples of the confluence of multiple ethnic and national identities within a single person or entity.
Under international law, the term national identity, concerning states, is interchangeable with the term state's identity or sovereign identity of the state. A State's identity by definition, is related to the Constitutional name of the state used as a legal identification in international relations and an essential element of the state's international juridical personality. The sovereign identity of the nation also represents a common denominator for identification of the national culture or cultural identity, and under International Law, any external interference with the cultural identity or cultural beliefs and traditions appear to be inadmissible. Any deprivation or external modification of the cultural national identity violates basic collective human rights.
The expression of one's national identity seen in a positive light is patriotism characterized by national pride and the positive emotion of love for one's country. The extreme expression of national identity is chauvinism, which refers to the firm belief in the country's superiority and extreme loyalty toward one's country.

Formation

National identity is not an inborn trait; it is essentially a social construct. There is no agreed definition of what constitutes national identity. It can result from the presence of elements from the "common points" in people's daily lives: national symbols, languages, colors, national history, blood ties, culture, music, cuisine, radio, television, and so on. Under various social influences, people incorporate national identity into their identities by adopting beliefs, values, assumptions, and expectations which align with a national identity. People with identification with their nation view national beliefs and values as personally meaningful and translate them into daily practices.
Three main schools of defining national identity exist:
  • Essentialists view national identity as fixed, based on ancestry, a common language history, ethnicity, and world views.
  • Constructivists believe in the importance of politics and the use of power by dominant groups to gain and maintain privileged status in society.
  • Finally, the civic identity school focuses on shared values about rights and state institutions' legitimacy to govern.
A few scholars have investigated how popular culture connects with the identity-building process.
Some found that contemporary music genres can strengthen ethnic identity by increasing the feeling of ethnic pride.

Conceptualization

Political scientist Rupert Emerson defined national identity as "a body of people who feel that they are a nation". This definition of national identity was endorsed by social psychologist, Henri Tajfel, who formulated social identity theory together with John Turner. Social identity theory adopts this definition of national identity and suggests that the conceptualization of national identity includes both self-categorization and affect. Self-categorization refers to identifying with a nation and viewing oneself as a member of a nation. The affect part refers to the emotion a person has with this identification, such as a sense of belonging or emotional attachment toward one's country. The mere awareness of belonging to a specific group invokes positive emotions about the group and leads to a tendency to act on behalf of that group, even when other group members are sometimes personally unknown.
National identity requires the process of self-categorization, and it involves both the identification of in-group and the differentiation of out-groups. People identify with a nation and form an in-group by recognizing commonalities such as having common descent and common destiny. At the same time they view people that identify with a different nation as out-groups. Social identity theory suggests a positive relationship between the identification of a nation and the derogation of other nations. People are involved in intergroup comparisons by identifying with their nation and tend to derogate out-groups. However, several studies have investigated this relationship between national identity and derogating other countries and found that identifying with national identity does not necessarily result in out-group derogation.
National identity, like other social identities, engenders emotions such as pride and love for one's national group and a feeling of obligation toward other members of that group. The socialization of national identity, such as socializing national pride and a sense of a country's exceptionalism, contributes to harmony among ethnic groups. For example, in the U.S., by integrating diverse ethnic groups in the overarching identity of being American, people are united by a shared emotion of national pride and the feeling of belonging to the U.S., and thus tend to mitigate ethnic conflicts.
From the point of view of international law, sovereign national identity cannot be subject to regulation or revision by treaty, and any international treaty aiming to create or change the national identity of the sovereign state appears to violate the jus cogens rights of the nation. A treaty revising national identity could be subject to termination under Article 53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Any deprivation or revision of the sovereign national identity appears to constitute an ethnocide. National identity could not be subject to imposition, revision, or deprivation under any circumstances.

Salience

National identity can be most noticeable when the nation confronts enemies or natural disasters. An example of this phenomenon is the rise in patriotism and national identity in the United States after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The identity of being an American became salient after the terrorist attacks and the evocation of American national identity. Having a common threat or a common goal can unite people in a nation and enhance national identity.
Sociologist Anthony Smith argues that national identity has the feature of continuity that can be transmitted and persisted through generations: national myths of having common descent and common destiny may enhance people's sense of belonging to a nation. However, national identities can disappear over time as when people live in foreign countries for a longer time, and can be challenged by supranational identities, which appeal to identification with a more inclusive, larger group that includes people from multiple nations. Dynasties and empires may exploit this appeal.
Research on study-abroad experiences that focused on the effects of American stereotypes found that American students faced challenges in connecting with their host country during their study-abroad experience because of stereotypes of American identity. A stereotype that affected their experience was related to politics during the 2016 United States presidential election of Donald Trump. A study found that students would disengage, distance, avoid, assimilate, or challenge their identity or host culture in response to the interactions they faced. Preconceived ideas within the host culture, and also amongst Americans, affect the ability of people from different backgrounds to understand and accept one another as individuals, rather than endorsing stereotypes of cultural groups.

People

The people are the basic concept for a national identity. But people can be identified and constructed through different logics of nationalism. Examples range from the Völkisch movement to people's republics.

National consciousness

A national consciousness is a shared sense of national identity and a shared understanding that a people group shares a common ethnic/linguistic/cultural background. Historically, a rise in national consciousness has been the first step toward creating a nation. At a glance, national consciousness is one's level of awareness of the collective and one's understanding that without "them", there is no "us". It is the mere awareness of the many shared attitudes and beliefs towards things like family, customs, societal and gender roles, etc. The awareness allows one to have a "collective identity", which allows them to be knowledgeable of where they are and how those places and people around them are so significant that they ultimately make the collective a nation. In short, national consciousness can be defined as a specific core of attitudes that provide habitual modes for regarding life's phenomena.
National identities in Europe and the Americas developed along with the idea of political sovereignty invested in the people of the state. In Eastern Europe, it was also often linked to ethnicity and culture. Nationalism requires first a national consciousness, the awareness of the national communality of a group of people or nation. An awakening of national consciousness is frequently ascribed to national heroes and is associated with national symbols.
National identity can be considered a collective product. Through socialization, a system of beliefs, values, assumptions, and expectations are transmitted to group members. The collective elements of national identity may include national symbols, traditions, and memories of national experiences and achievements. These collective elements are rooted in the nation's history. Depending on how much the individual is exposed to the socialization of this system, people incorporate national identity into their identity to different degrees and in different ways, and the collective elements of national identity may become important parts of an individual's definition of the self and how they view the world and their place in it.