Overcoming the Us vs. Them? The power of national identities in attenuating or intensifying affective polarization

This paper contributes with new experimental evidence to the so far limited pool of research on how affective polarization, once in place, can be successfully attenuated. One factor that has been highlighted in this context is the possibility to cultivate cross-cutting identities that proponents of different parties can embrace (Mason 2016). One such cross-cutting identity may be the national identity (Huddy and Khatib 2007). The link between national identity and the dampening of affective polarization can be construed in a rather straightforward manner: activating national identity as a form of higher-order identity may increase people’s proclivity to re-categorize political opponents from members of a disliked party-group to fellow co-nationals. In this way, a sense of shared belonging to the same nation may overshadow the most negative reactions invoked by party cues and social comparison (Levendusky 2018). The idea that a superordinate identity can be constructed to bridge otherwise parochial and feuding identities is known as the common in-group identity model (CIIM) (Gaertner et al. 1993). The model holds that “when people identify with a superordinate group, the favoritism reserved for in-group members is extended to former out-group members and mitigates conflict between the subgroups” (Kalin and Suddiqui 2020: 62). The study, to be carried out in Sweden and Denmark during the spring of 2023, is based on two visual prime experiments whereby a population representative sample of eligible voters in either a treatment or control condition indicates national identification as well as partisan-based in-group and out-group feelings and trait-ratings. Our experiments are based on two visual priming tools designed to activate thoughts about nationhood: one flag prime and one landscape prime, each consisting of three conditions – national flag/landscape treatment condition, fictitious flag/landscape control condition, and no flag/landscape control condition. With that said, national identity, then, is a multidimensional rather than a unidimensional concept, which tends to be overlooked in empirical studies. Based on a multidimensional typology of national identities, we expect that the kind (national attachment, national pride, national chauvinism, (un)critical patriotism) and content (civic/cultural/ethnic nationalism) of the national identity that inhabits a person, or that is activated under a certain circumstance, is consequential for its capacity to alleviate tensions between out-group members. If the national identity is of a more inclusive nature, it may work as a superordinate identity that reduces aversion toward out-groups by enlarging the in-group. If it is confined to for instance the inclusion of ethnic co-nationals, it may increase antipathy toward groups that are non-ethnic country-men, or groups that promote a more inclusive version of national identity. The study will contribute robust evidence on what kind of national identity the national flag and national landscapes actually activates among different voter groups in different country-contexts, and which dimensions of national identity have the potential to attenuate affective polarization rather than intensifying it.