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Politics, Society and Political
Identity
Alistair Cole
What is Political Identity?
• Has Identity been ‘murdered’? Is it useless
‘scientifically’ (WJM MacKenzie)
• The phrase identity does not refer to an
objective phenomenon and there is no agreed
meaning.
• The meaning of identity has evolved, indeed
been misused. Identity started off as meaning
sameness of two objects, in the sense of
identical. It then evolved to mean the continuity
of an individual personality, hence difference.
• By extension, ‘ The phrase is a metaphor,
moving from individual to collective’.
• In a metaphorical sense, identity can signify a
broader use; in social identity/collective identity,
the social or collective is given an individual
Identity and the social sciences: 3
classic positions
• Cultural anthropologists, such as Margaret Mead writing
in the 1920s, use identity as culture, to refer to whole
societies. Mead assumed that each culture was unique,
consistent and binding. Individual identity could not be
comprehended outside of a collectivity.
• Other end of the spectrum: For psychologists, such as
Erikson or Freud, identity played out within an individual
personality.
• Sociologists (Goffmann), identity was only
comprehensible in a social - group - context, since
identity was shaped by interactionism. For Goffmann
‘the individual exists only in situations of social
interaction’.
A Compound meaning
• Whatever its initial meaning, identity has a compound sense;
identity can be individual, social (society), or collective (group). In
practice these levels interact and are mutally entangled.
• At the macro level, political identity can be understood as ‘common
purpose’, as an entity that persists through time. Classically
associated with a nation-state… It consists of a combination of
myths, symbols, rituals and ideology. Myths: the founding images of
groups, nations, social groups, regions…. Symbols, such as flags,
signs, language; rituals: especially understood in a political sense;
ideology; coherent patterns of belief.
• Intermediate forms of political identity are class, race, religion and
nation. In most cases, a rhetoric of identity strengthens - or
otherwise - the cohesion of a group.
• But this throws up serious methodological issues
Methodological issues
• There are methodological issues concerned here: does it
apply to individuals (individual-level analysis?) Or to
collective entities (class, gender, race and so on) ?
• Can we make any assumptions about collective entities
from individual analysis? In the worst cases, ‘identity’
becomes a form of primordialism or essentialism, in
which individuals are credited with ascriptive (that is, not
chosen by themselves) identities which are assumed to
guide behaviour
• If we ascribe individuals to categories, such as class or
gender, how do we know that these are meaningful for
these individuals?
• There is a tendency to use identity as a master
category, so that ethnicity or gender determine behaviour
Three contemporary research
traditions
• Ethnographical analysis; researcher as a participant
observer imbued with the culture of a group/tribe.
Individual little autonomy
• Macro- Statistical analysis: political culture studies of the
1960s and studies of values of political scientists such as
Inglehart
• Post-modern analysis 1). individual has recovered
autonomy both from group and societal pressures 2).
Individual chooses between identity choices and
distinctive identity markers. Identity is constructed
• Studying identity thus involves two-three different levels
of analysis: 1). Societal: what is the value of reasoning in
terms of political culture? 2). Intermediate: how are
individuals influenced by class, religion, race, ethnicity?
3). individual (how do individuals ‘mix’ their identities, or
do they?
Tradition 1. Identity as national
cultures
• Almond and Verba The Civic Culture, 1965.. Modern
values-based research such as that of Inglehart
• Identify broad traits of a ‘political culture’ by means of a
mass survey approach
• National stereotyping? Largely discredited in its original
form. The ‘nation’ unit of analysis is problematic, at least
in terms of values
• Link with ‘political development’ discredited today; an
ethnocentric approach that took the US as the core
benchmark for liberal democracy and looked to identify
the cultural conditions for stable democracy
• Deducing system-wide conclusions from questions
asked of individuals . Ecological fallacy.
• More purchase at the level of sub-cultures (e.g.
Communist or Catholic sub-cultures)
Tradition 2: identifying Heavy
sociological variables 1.
• Identity as forms of social cleavage. Cleavages are social or valuebased conflicts. The term cleavage structure refers to the main lines
of political division within a society.
• In their classic work, Lipset and Rokkan identify three main sources
of division within European societies society:
• Anticlericalism [Republic]/Church , from the French revolution and
subsequent wave of anti-clericalism across Europe (eighteenth);
• Centre-Periphery, from the imperfect process of state formation
across Europe in the nineteenth century (19th century);
• Social class, inherited from the industrial revolution and the conflict
between capital and labour, which largely structured 20th century
politics.
• For Lipset and Rokkan most of the key cleavages in place in the
1960s were in place by the late nineteenth century; their thesis on
the frozen character of cleavages remains very influential.
• Different countries can be characterised by the importance of one,
or more than one cleavage – and this cleavage structure has had a
very important effect in structuring the party system.
Heavy Sociological Variables 2
• Tim Bale identifies nine key cleavages that structure politics in
Europe today: in order of their appearance, these are:
• Land-industry (18th century), representing the conflicting interests of
the aristocracy and the emerging bourgeoisie… gradually victory of
the bourgeoisie and creation of bourgeois parties
• owner-worker, giving rise to the classic labour-capital division and to
the birth of SD parties
• urban-rural cleavages, especially in countries such as Norway
where the urban middle classes were of foreign extraction and the
rural areas were peopled by poor indigenous peasants (agrarian
parties, today largely disappeared)
• centre-periphery (regionalist/ minority nationalist parties)
• church-state (clericalism/Christian democracay against anti-clerical
parties)
• Revolution-gradualism ( Social Democracy and Communist parties
in 1917)
• Democracy-totalitarianism (rise of fascists in 1930s)
• modernism/post-materialism(environmental and quality of life issues,
from 1960s onwards (Greens)
• multiculturalism/homogeneity (far-right and populism)
Cross-cutting cleavages
• These cleavages could stand alone: where there is only one line of
cleavage – the normal or residual social class one – then this acts
as the fundamentally structuring element.
• But other cleavages might cut across the class one, and be more
pertinent politically; this can be the case of religion, for example,
where religious behaviour is very closely associated with a
conservative orientation in most countries, whatever social class one
belongs to.
• On the other hand, lower-level cleavages might be nested in higher
order cleavages: thus, the centre-periphery cleavage – where
minority nations resist the construction of a state – might strengthen
divisions based on social class; especially if members of a minority
community are also in an unfavourable socio-economic position.
• Thus cleavages can be structuring; reinforcing or cross-cutting.
• Remains seminal for considering contours of European party system
Tradition 3 Post-modern identity
markers
• Individual chooses between identity
choices and distinctive identity markers.
Identity is constructed
• It is very unusual for individuals to have
only one set of identities; much more
usually the case for individual identities to
be complex sets of allegiances, some of
which are reinforcing, others not.
Identity Markers in contemporary
Europe
• The most powerful traditional identity markers are nation,
race, religion, class, territory and language
• Race has been virtually discredited as a means of
identity. Pseudo-scientific racial studies have been
discredited. Gene pools have been mixed everwhere,
depriving racial analysis of any legitimacy.
• Religion is a source of cultural and semantic identity
that we will consider below.
• Nation is an obvious source of identity, as are other
forms of imagined community.
• Class has everywhere been declining as a source of
identity.
• Territory and language will be considered in the next
Constructing identities: the case of
territory and identity
• In the constructivist tradition, individuals choose
between varying identity markers.
• The Moreno ‘question’ offers a measure that
allows individuals to combine their ‘ethnoterritorial’ (regional) and their ‘civic state’
(national) identities.
• Other scales ask citizens to distinguish between
up to four levels of identification: with locality,
region, nation and Europe. These are difficult to
operationalise. They assume the voter/citizen
has the ability to integrate four or more
dimensions
What is the Moreno scale?
• The Moreno ‘question’ measures dual identities through
asking respondents how they combine their ‘ethnoterritorial’ (regional) and their ‘civic state’ (national)
identities. The Moreno identity scale was initially
developed as a means of mapping the revival of ethnoterritorial identities in the union states of Spain and the
United Kingdom.
• Logically, this measure only makes sense where there
are overlapping identities. Rather than withering away,
as predicted by modernistic social science, minority
nationalism has emerged as a powerful force across
Europe. There has been a revival of ethno-territorial
identities and a challenge to the centralist model of the
unitary state
Multiple identities
• Though civic and ethnic nationalism are often in
conflict, the core of Moreno’s argument is that
modern states have witnessed the emergence of
multiple identities.
• There is evidence that ‘citizens in advanced
liberal democracies seem to reconcile
supranational, state and local identities, which
both majority and minority nationalisms often
tend to polarise in a conflicting manner’
(McEwen and Moreno, 2005: 22).
Constructing Identities
• Moreno develops an ideal-type against which to
measure ethno-territorial identities.
• Ethno-territorial identities reflect themselves in
sub-state political institutions, distinctive party
systems, language rights movements and
cultural traditions and specific forms of elite
accommodation.
• This measure has been used to measure ‘dual
identities’ in Scotland, Wales, Catalonia, Basque
country, Flanders, Brittany
• A. Cole used this scale to measure dual
identities in Wales and Brittany
European Identity and globalisation
• Problem of ‘methodological individualism’.
• What is identity and how do we measure
it?
• What do we do when we ask questions
about globalisation? Can we expect a
coherent response/
• European Values survey and
Eurobarometer
Europeanisation of identities?
• Accession to the EU: does this produce a
Europeanisation of identities?
• French and Dutch referendums. What
were these measuring?
• Multiple identities
• Permissive consensus
• Conceptions of globalisation. How
constructed? Global governance? Or
delocalisations?
European political identity and
globalisation
• The EU itself acts as a legal order that embeds democratic
institutions in its member-states – however much one might criticise
the democratic deficit within the EU itself.
• The new accession states of 2004 and 2007 countries had each to
meet strict criteria – the Copenhagen criteria of 1993 – to be able to
join in the European Union.
• This provides a very good example of diffusion: of the imposition of
norms of good practice and respect for human rights on members
wanting to join the club.
• EU a strongly normative agenda, as well as a market.
• Values of human rights, good governance, anti-corruption,
democracy, diversity… citizenship.
• Framing as democracy – soutehrn Europe, CEE – or as markets
and regulatory stability – UK, nordic states..
A Christian Club?
• But deeper issues of identity: such as
religion, cause conflict/division at the
European level.
• Turkey, Romania, Bulgarian all pose
specific contemporary challenges
• UK accession in 1973: brought in a
protestant member.
Globalisation as a material reality?
• Globalisation is, for the most part, used to signify a
series of objective material shifts bound up with the
increasing mobility of capital, the trans-nationalisation of
production processes, shifting patterns of trade,
technological changes…that all facilitate world-wide
economic interaction.
• The concept is used to refer to the spread of neo-liberal
policy norms, the retreat from Keynesian welfare state
and social democracy.
• The prevailing interpretation sees globalization as either
a structural fact or a set of policy preferences.
• globalization makes powerful truth claims, requiring neoliberal responses.
• There is dispute about the extent of novelty of
globalization and the extent to which it is actually
occurring. International exchange has always occurred;
the terms of international trade do not offer equal
opportunities to all nations or continents.
Globalisation and
Europeanization
• The EU literature presents globalization in terms of being an
external shock, a change from outside. Outside changes have
strengthened the role of the EU as a stable governance system.
There are a number of versions of this external argument:
• The neo-functionalist one, espoused by Sandholtz and Zysman
(1989) whereby external economic change affected the preferences
of business actors, who lobbied political authorities for the Single
market and currency.
• Other accounts focus on the impact on national states (Schmidt) and
the loss of economic sovereignty brought about by the integration in
processes of global governance
• Others focus on the impact of global change on domestic
constituencies (Moravscik, Milner).
• Each of these sees rather mechanical effects. Europeanisation then
emerges as a west European effort to develop policies to cope with
the anarchy of the globe.
Globalisation as discourse
Too much emphasis given to the empirical verifiability of globalisation,
not enough to the saliency of globalization in contemporary policy
processes. Globalisation is interesting in its ideational dimensions,
how it structures political discourse.
• WE can not simply treat globalization as a matter of exogenous
change. The social construction of globalization determines whether
it will be contested or embraced.
• Globalisation as discourse can signify the irresistible triumph of neoliberal solutions. It can also be used to delimit the range of available
strategic opportunities.
• There is an widely diffused belief in the spread of globalization as
economic liberalization across the globe. In the hands of politicians,
economic globalization has become distorted and vulgarized, in the
sense of there is no alternative (Blair and new Labour)
• globalisation has adopted a harder edge. For Leon Brittan, for
example, globalization represented European level regulatory
competence and neo-liberal policy options. This version sees
globalization as an opportunity, rather than a threat.
• But there is a large degree of dispute about what globalization
requires; there is normative dissonance.
Adapting to globalisation: the UK
• British Political discourse has framed globalisation as
opportunity. Adapting to globalisation is inevitable and
facilitates shifts from a manufacturing to a service and
financial based economy
• Adapting to globalisation; the advantage of setting a
superior order to that of the European Union, recalling
the imperative of global governance (UN, WTO, etc)
• Globalisation a useful discursive tool to legitimise
domestic change and to attract footloose capital (nonDoms)
• Globalisation: primarily an economic framing of what the
EU is for and its limitations.