Politics, Society and Political Identity

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Politics, Society and Political Identity

• Alistair Cole

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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 personality.

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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.
• Cultural identity theorists became tared with
  the brush of national character.
• Other end of the spectrum For psychologists,
  such as Erikson, 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.

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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.
• Collective 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.
• As a collective entity, we understand identity
  as common purpose, something that persists
  through time. 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.
• But this throws up serious methodological issues

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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
• Is identity (mainly) an individual level
  phenomena? 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 as class once did

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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 Kitschelt
• 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). individual (how
  do individuals mix their identities, or do
  they? 2). Intermediate how are individuals
  influenced by class, religion, race, ethnicity?
  Societal what is the value of reasoning in terms
  of political culture?

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Tradition 1. Identity as national cultures

• Almond and Verba The Civic Culture, 1963.. 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
• More purchase at the level of sub-cultures (e.g.
  Communist or Catholic sub-cultures)

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Tradition 2 identifying Heavy sociological
variables 1.

• Identity as forms of social cleavage. Cleavages
  are social or value-based 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.

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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)

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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

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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.

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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 lecture

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National Identity?

• National Identity? The question of identity is
  most frequently posed at the level of the
  nation-state Political Culture theorists in the
  1960s sought to link attitudes distributed
  throughout the population with the overarching
  features of political systems. These attempts at
  linkage were not very successful
• Nations are imagined communities each nation
  has historic symbols that sometimes are reflected
  in the state but not always, notably in the
  case of divided societies such as Belgium, or
  countries where there are strong regional
  distinctions as in Spain. National identity is
  constructed in rather different manners across
  the key states in the EU.
• National identity a set of myths, symbols,
  rituals.but these are difficult to generalize,
  as they vary in the context of each nation-state
  
• Stateless-nations?

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Problems with national identity

• Some key problems with national identities where
  are the boundaries of the nation? Is it based on
  blood ties or on adhesion to a common set of
  values? Does the nation coincide with the
  boundaries of the state? Is the nation
  inclusive, or, as in the case of Nazism,
  exclusive? Does national identity signify
  constitutionalism nationalism? Or triumph of one
  core group over another

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Social class and politics

• In Wales, studies of identity have concluded that
  it is not focused principally around locality, or
  language, or symbols such as flags but around
  the perception that people in Wales are working
  class. Here a strong sense of class identity is
  more salient than anything else. Social class was
  long considered - and to some extent still is -
  to represent the core source of political
  IDENTITY within older European nations,
  especially in the UK, Germany and the Scandiavian
  countries.
• These nations are countries with relatively
  developed social classes, and with, historically
  speaking, a high degree of class consciousness.
  Although in no one country have political
  divisions been reduced to those of class, class
  identities have generally been to some extent
  predictive of political loyalties - to a greater
  or lesser extent according to the existence of
  other significant sources of division.

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Class as the main cleavage

• The model of residual class-based politics has
  traditionally been given as that of Britain this
  does not necessarily mean that class politics are
  more intense in Britain than elsewhere, but it
  does signify that class has usually been regarded
  as the most significant indicator pointing to
  political choice.
• According to the findings of Butler and Stokes
  in the 1960s, at the height of the two party
  system, social class corresponded closely with
  political choice, with industrial workers largely
  favouring Labour over Conservatives (65/35), and
  non-manual strata overwhelmingly favouring the
  Conservatives (75-25). Indeed, class voting was
  taken for granted, so much so that all else was
  embellishment and detail.
• Partisan and class dealignment... But class has
  been perceived to be important in British
  politics because there has been no other major
  source of division, such as religion or
  linguistic conflict (except in specific
  territories)

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Class and intensity

• The British model- class as the only significant
  source of identity/conflict - can be seen as the
  European exception. All other countries had
  rather more complicated cleavage structures
  based notably on religion, on the rural/urban
  dichotomy, on regional identities, on the
  divisive role of language. But, even where other
  sources of political division exist, social class
  has usually - historically - performed an
  important role as well, with class differences
  often reinforcing other divisions, such as those
  seperating catholics and anti-clericals.
• The impact of social class must also be assessed
  in terms on the intensity with which class
  sentiments are held and the degree of class
  conflict within a society. For example, whereas
  industrial workers constituted a majority of the
  population in Britain, they were never more than
  a geographically concentrated and resentful
  minority in France, with the result that
  industrial workers came to form a strong
  inward-looking sub-culture isolated from the
  mainstream of French society, which for several
  generations saw its salvation in the
  revolutionary appeal of the Communist party.
  Thus, to understand identity we need to observe
  issues of intensity.

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Religion

• The church-State cleavage and the role of
  religion
• Opinion surveys throughout Western Europe have
  repeatedly shown that religion can have a
  significant impact upon how an individual
  perceives of political issues, and his or her
  role within the political system. Moreover,
  religion often - but not always collides with
  social class to reinforce loyalties adopted by
  particular individuals. In Italy, for example,
  the industrial working class was traditionally
  been both anti-clerical (on account of the
  support of the Catholic Church for the existing
  social hierarchies) and left-wing (on account of
  the close connection of the Church with the
  former DCI).

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Declining religosity

• Religious identities come in all shapes and
  sizes. In the context of European politics, the
  religious/anti-clerical division has a central
  place. There has been a decline in religiosity
  and also a declining capacity for the Church to
  intervene in politics. Gordon Smith two levels
  of religious disengagement 1). The Church no
  longer intervenes directly in politics, or, when
  it does so, it is defeated (e.g. divorce
  referendums in Italy in 1970s)2). Relationships
  between religious affiliations and voting choice
  begin to weaken. If the first level of religious
  disengagement is general, the religious
  identification is still the best indicator of
  voting behaviour anti-clerical stance is
  correlated with atheism and a left-wing vote,
  while religious behaviour is linked to a
  rightwing vote.
• New religious fervour?

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Language and linguistic identity

• The process of state building in Western Europe
  takes as its great reference point the French
  revolution of the late eighteenth century and the
  national unification movements of the nineteenth
  century. The process has continued in the
  twentieth century.
• The role of language is important in several
  respects. There has generally been a coincidence
  of national state boundaries, and linguistic
  entities. In certain countries - such as France
  - the emergence of a strong central state was
  accompanied by a gradual suppression of all
  linguistic and regional identities in this
  instance, the idea of nation was largely
  synonymous with that of the state itself.
• In Germany, by contrast, the process of
  unification brought together German speakers
  previously dispersed through a wide range of
  separate states the Federal character of German
  postwar Republic recognises the cultural and
  regional diversity of the German people.

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Centre-periphery cleavages

• The rise of minority nationalism has been one of
  the major developments in western European
  countries in the past twenty years
• In Spain, in particular, there has been a move
  to a form of asymmetrical federalism, where the
  three nations Catalonia, Basque Country and
  Galicia are recognised as historic
  nationalities in the 1978 constitution and given
  extended devolved powers.
• In the UK, the minority nationalist question has
  been nested in a broader class cleavage in both
  Scotland and Wales, national identity came as
  a result of a specific feeling of class identity
  and of being different from the rest of the UK.
• If there are fashions, this is one. In Italy, a
  move to regional evolution has accompanied more
  assertive regional claims, such as that of
  Padania in the north.
• But much less so in central and eastern Europe

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Political Identity Using the Moreno Scale to
measure identities

• Alistair Cole

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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
  ethno-territorial (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

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What is the Moreno scale?

• The Moreno question measures dual identities
  through asking respondents how they combine their
  ethno-territorial (regional) and their civic
  state (national) identities. The Moreno identity
  scale was initially developed as a means of
  mapping the revival of ethno-territorial
  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

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Multiple identities

• Though civic and ethnic nationalism are often in
  conflict, the core of Morenos 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).

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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

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Brittany and Wales Strong Identity Regions

• Brittany and Wales are both historic regions with
  complex but strong identities. Both Brittany and
  Wales possess distinctive institutions and strong
  political and/or cultural identities, features
  that set them apart from most other regions
  within their respective nation-states. The
  research design is thus based on the most similar
  comparative case study (Ragin, 1997).
• These two regions are broadly comparable in terms
  of the challenges they face. In historical terms,
  both Brittany and Wales correspond to those
  regions identified by Rokkan and Urwin (1982), in
  which the development of regional consciousness
  is a function of economic dependency and the
  persistence of a strong cultural identity.

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Brittany and Wales Strong Identity Regions 2

• Brittany and Wales are both located on the far
  Western Atlantic seaboard of Europe, on the
  geographical margins of traditionally
  highly-centralised states. Both regions have
  strong cultural, linguistic and political
  identities.
• Closely-related Celtic languages, Breton and
  Welsh, are spoken in both regions, which provide
  a direct object of comparison.
• Religion has been important in shaping regional
  identities. Catholicism in Brittany, one of
  Frances most pious regions, for long performed a
  critical role in defining acceptable political
  and societal choices. Non-conformism in Wales had
  at least as strong an influence.
• There are many similar characteristics, but one
  major difference the overarching state
  structures that are more or less permissive
  towards territorial asymmetry and expressions of
  regional identity.
• Research into compound identities of any sort is
  rare in France. In the mainstream French
  Republican tradition, territorial (especially
  regional) or ethnic identities are considered a
  threat to a neutral public sphere that can alone
  guarantee political and civil rights.

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Comparing Brittany and Wales

• Modern Brittany is a French region with a
  difference. Unlike many other French regions, it
  can look to its past existence as an independent
  political entity, with its own founding myths and
  political institutions
• Though the symbols of statehood have long since
  disappeared, the region retains many distinctive
  characteristics. In theory, Brittany possesses at
  least some of the key features identified by
  Moreno to develop an ethno-territorial
  identity a pre-state political existence, an
  autonomist Breton political movement, a language
  rights movement, strong cultural traditions and
  specific forms of elite accommodation. Wales
  shares these characteristics
• Wales and Brittany therefore provide a robust
  case for testing the importance and limitations
  of the relationship between dual identities,
  institution-building and political and discursive
  opportunity structures.

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Contrasting national and EU environments.

• Both regions operate within overarching national
  and EU environments. Neither Brittany nor Wales
  can escape from the legacy of its past. The
  contrasting prospects for Brittany and Wales of
  autonomous forms of regional governance today are
  to some extent tied into their different
  experiences of nation-state building.
• The French State building enterprise has,
  historically speaking, been remarkably successful
  in inculcating deeply rooted beliefs linking the
  national territory with social progress.
• The UK Union State was far more permissive and
  inclined to take into account territorial
  differences. The UK was less insistent than
  France on linking uniform state structures and
  the enjoyment of civil and political rights.
• In both states, the degree of autonomy enjoyed by
  these distinctive peripheral regions has been
  defined by central government, rather than by the
  regions themselves.

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Polling Identities

• At the heart of the Moreno method is the
  empirical investigation of dual identities in
  territories where there are overlapping
  loyalties. Brittany and Wales were identified as
  potentially comprising such territories and two
  polling organisations were commissioned to carry
  out parallel surveys in June 2001
• At the macro-level, we investigated the linkage
  of identities with institutions, political
  parties and cultural and language rights
  movements. For contextual purposes, we also
  contrast patterns of elite accommodation.
• At the micro-level, we formally identify a series
  of independent variables, based on territory,
  age, social class, education and language,
  against which to calibrate dual identities in
  Brittany and Wales.

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The Moreno Identity Scale for Brittany

• Do you consider yourself...
• Breton, not French 2
• More Breton than French 15
• Equally Breton and French 57
• More French than Breton 17
• French, not Breton 7
• Dont know 2

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The Moreno Identity Scale for Wales

• Do you consider yourself...
• Welsh, not British 20
• More Welsh than British 17
• Equally Welsh and British 35
• More British than Welsh 22
• British, not Welsh 6
• Dont know 2

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Discussion

• Dual identities are more easily assumed in
  Brittany than in Wales.
• There is little perceived conflict between being
  Breton and being French, while for an important
  minority of Welsh people Britishness is perceived
  in negative terms.
• Brittany manages to combine ethno-territorial,
  civic and supranational identities in a mutually
  reinforcing manner. Breton and French identities
  appear complementary, the median position (As
  Breton as French) being the overwhelming
  favourite.
• On the other hand, our findings explode the myth
  that there is only one French identity
  three-quarters of the survey declared themselves
  to feel at least as Breton as French.
• In Wales, in contrast, we observe a much higher
  incidence of divided identities. A sense of
  Welshness as being essentially opposed to
  Britishness is firmly rooted in a sizeable
  minority of Welsh people.

35
Identities and Institutions

• There is a debate today in Wales on the future of
  Devolution. Which one of the following options do
  you prefer ?
• Abolish the National Assembly for Wales 24
• Retain a National Assembly with limited powers
  24
• Create an elected parliament with tax-raising and
  legislative powers 38
• An independent Wales 11
• Dont Know 3

36
Identity and Institutions cross tabulated

• Those with an exclusive sense of Welsh identity
  (17) are more favourable to independence than
  any other group (26)
• Those with a primary sense of Welsh identity
  (17 20, the first two positions, i.e. Welsh
  not British, more Welsh than British) are more
  favourable to either independence, or a
  Parliament with tax-varying and legislative
  powers.
• The starkly opposed positions in relation to
  identity and institutional preferences suggest
  that opinion in Wales was divided about
  institutional futures. Even those with an
  exclusive sense of Welsh identity, however, are
  reluctant to espouse the solution of full
  independence.
• Brittany number of exclusive identity Bretons
  too weak to measure meaningfully the link with
  political independence

37
Comparing Wales and Brittany the role of the
Party system

• Our analysis demonstrates that the party system
  and electoral choice are important explanatory
  variables differentiating ethno-territorial
  constructions in Brittany and Wales.
• In Wales, divided identities fed through directly
  into the party system, via the presence of an
  important nationalist party.
• In Brittany, the discursive and political
  opportunity structures provides less fertile
  terrain for the development of sub-state
  nationalism and shared identities are distributed
  fairly evenly across existing political
  formations.

38
Identity and electoral choice

• Amongst those with an exclusive sense of Welsh
  identity, preferences were evenly split between
  Labour and Plaid Cymru, with the other parties
  registering virtually no support.
• Those considering themselves as more Welsh than
  British also divided their support mainly between
  Labour and Plaid Cymru.
• While Labour maintained its support in all
  identity configurations, support for Plaid Cymru
  steeply declined amongst those considering
  themselves as equally or more British than Welsh.
  
• Conversely, the Conservatives were supported by
  those with a primary or exclusive sense of
  British identity.
• From this indicative survey, Labour appeared as
  the pivotal party in Wales, able to appeal across
  the entire identity spectrum. Plaid Cymru support
  is limited to those who identify themselves
  primarily as Welsh Conservative support is
  confined to those identifying themselves mainly
  as British. The Liberal Democrats can also
  mobilise across electorates, but from a much
  weaker numeric base.