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National Identities
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Nations, national identity and prestige

a
Steve Wood
a
Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University,
Herring Road, Sydney 2109, Australia
Published online: 07 Apr 2014.

To cite this article: Steve Wood (2014) Nations, national identity and prestige, National Identities,
16:2, 99-115, DOI: 10.1080/14608944.2014.897315

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 National Identities, 2014
Vol. 16, No. 2, 99–115, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14608944.2014.897315

Nations, national identity and prestige

Steve Wood*

Politics and International Relations, Macquarie University, Herring Road, Sydney 2109, Australia
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Prestige is a concept or factor that receives relatively little sustained attention in the
specialist academic work on nations, national identity and nationalism. It is, however,
an implicit influence in much of this literature. Evidence, perspectives and insights,
suggesting that prestige is a vital element in the psychological constitution of nations,
emerge from a diverse range of sources.
Keywords: nations; identity; prestige; psychology; nationalism

Introduction
The historical and contemporary importance of prestige in the psychological constitution of
nations, their perceptions and evaluations of other nations, and resulting behaviour and state
policy, is understated if not overlooked in much of the literature on national identity and
nationalism. This article aims to illuminate the relationship between national identity and
prestige. It conceptualises prestige as the upper echelon on a theoretical scale of recognition
and an element of continuity in human affairs. It contends that nations are the collectives
most sensitive to prestige. To explore its themes, the article draws on some exceptions to a
general lack of attention in the specialist literature, works from outside the field, archival
material, opinion surveys and interview sources. It first outlines the prestige concept before
surveying some of the scholarship on national identity and nationalism. It then examines
national identity as a conduit to individual esteem. The fourth section presents a brief case
study of Germany in the period leading to and after its initial unification, before the fifth
section applies a more contemporary lens to reprise the German case in a new context. The
final two sections analyse prestige in International Relations and incorporate the European
Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN), political entities that are neither nations nor
states, into the discussion. Some conclusions follow.

Prestige
Prestige is a compound of cognitive, emotive, social and, some argue, biological elements
(Barkow, 1975; Henrich & Gil-White, 2001). It could be sought in or derive from
physical deeds and constructions, military victories, wealth, technological capacity, or
special knowledge, personal connections and cultural or scientific eminence. Prestige is
positional and relational, with positive and negative dimensions, dependent on how much

*Email: steve.wood@mq.edu.au
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
 100 S. Wood

an entity is considered to have. It applies to individuals and families, professions and

other occupations, clubs and organisations, products and services, and groups, offices and
institutions. Prestige resides in a semantic cluster that includes reputation, status, respect,
pride, honour and esteem. In certain social or discursive settings it could be synonymous
or interchangeable with any of them. Different academic disciplines tend to emphasise
one or other as most related to or tantamount with prestige. Desire for or exultation in
prestige can veer to vanity, bombast and aggrandisement. Some claims to prestige may be
exposed as examples of its French translation – illusion (Schalk, 1971). Precisely what
endows prestige and why individuals and groups seek it varies through time and cultural
space. Nonetheless, it is omnipresent: a human universal (Brown, 1991).
Prestige has functioned as a sensibility and a mechanism – in tribes, clans and
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empires – before nations were conceived of. The nation, however, is the collective that
has had most world-historical significance, usually in some form of interdependence with
a state, or due to the absence of one. National identity is a ‘condition in which a mass of
people’ have ‘internalised’ certain symbols. Having done so ‘they may act as one
psychological group when there is a threat to, or the possibility of enhancement of, these
symbols’ (Bloom, 1990, p. 52). Notwithstanding the persistence of some features,
national identities are dynamic and contestable. Content and emphases alter. The past is
integrated or reinvented into the discourses, consciousness and political contexts of the
present. Some nations have demonstrated themselves as capable of self-critical and
transparent examination of their histories. Others struggle to do this, and are resentful
when scholars, media or political actors attempt it. What these variable responses
indicate, inter alia, are different attitudes or reactions to dealing with acceptance and
standing. People want the nations – ethnic, cultural or civic – to which they belong and
represent to be held in high regard. ‘National prestige’, Bloom (1990, p. 84) suggests, is
the influence that can be exercised or the impression produced by virtue of events and
images that devalue or enhance national identity. Nations with an understanding as
prestige possessors: that they are politically influential, pervaded with grandeur,
demonstrate artistic, economic, sporting or intellectual achievement, the land they occupy
is attractive (cf. Kaufmann & Zimmer, 1998), or they have a constructive role in world
affairs, are more content with their place in global and/or regional contexts. Nations that
believe they lack prestige will be motivated to correct that circumstance.
Prestige and power are terms that often appear in tandem. Aristotle (1999, p. 156)
contended that ‘in all nations which are able to gratify their ambition, military power is
held in esteem’. Hechter (1995, p. 59) described prestige as ‘tangible’ or ‘fungible’,
situating it in the same category as ‘wealth’ and ‘power’, all ‘goods’ consistent with an
instrumental interpretation of nationalism, including violent expressions of it. Individuals
who expected that national self-determination would increase their store of these goods,
‘are those most likely to support nationalism’ (Hechter, 2000, p. 30). For Hyam (2010),
prestige enabled Britain to govern a vast, far-flung network of colonies. Prestige was
fundamental to the notion of ‘informal empire’ and a circularity that sustained it: the
empire was reliant on beliefs or presumptions that Britain retained the material power to
corroborate the prestige that had derived from material power. This understanding is
conveyed in many writings on British imperialism. Less explored is whether Britain’s
rulers or general population desired prestige as an ‘end in itself’.
Nicholson (1937), a political practitioner and astute analyst, had insight into ideational
qualities, though ultimately he too regards military and/or economic power as indispensable
for political entities to possess prestige. His assessment portrayed differing understandings
 National Identities 101

and corresponding worldviews and policy. For the French, prestige belonged to a ‘category
of feelings’ and ‘emotional effect’, linked to a ‘seventeenth century sense of domination’
and a sense of ‘reputation’ combining ‘military capacity’ and ‘magnificent cultural
achievements’. The ‘German concept of prestige is very akin to their concept of national
honour’, which is ‘closely identified’ with ‘personal honour’ and ‘questions of status’. For
the ‘average Englishman’, prestige was not ‘glamour or glory, not national honour, but
national reputation’, which was based on ‘character’ and ‘virtues’. It was a necessary but
not sufficient condition. An unspecified though tacitly considerable material power, and a
capacity to deploy it, was also requisite. British prestige was then founded on the exercise of
or reserve capacity for force, accompanied by ‘very careful regard for our reputation’
(Nicholson, 1937, pp. 15–16; 19–20, p. 32).
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Prestige has been manipulated by political elites to maintain a status quo or for
revisionist purposes. Prestige also has a role in the forming of new national identities,
which, Jelen (2011, pp. 379–380) argues, require a ‘device suitable for exerting concrete
or symbolic power … useful as a means of bringing people together’. Such a device, if
inherently ‘ambivalent and changeable’, could be prestige itself, would generate it, or
have the potential to do so. Despite a frequently close and sometimes symbiotic affinity,
prestige and power are different properties. Hard power could be the locus of prestige and
it could be possessed without prestige. ‘Soft’ or ‘normative’ power could derive from or
translate into prestige, but requires favourable circumstances to be effective.

Scholarly treatments
The intention here is not to participate in definitional controversies about what a nation is.
Rather, I argue that prestige is pertinent for modernist, perennialist or primordialist
interpretations, including contributions that accent ethnicity, myth and symbolism, or
those that emphasise political engineering, voluntarism and upheavals associated with the
onset of industrialisation. Given the influence of prestige in social and political dynamics
it is surprising that so little of the scholarship on nations, national identity or nationalism
engages directly and intensively with the concept. There are, to note a selection, major
volumes on nations and nationalism (Gellner, 1983), nations as imagined communities
(Anderson, 1983), cultural nationalism (Hutchinson, 1987), nationalism and international
society (Mayall, 1990), ethnonationalism (Connor, 1994), nationhood and political theory
(Canovan, 1996), nationalism and modernism (Smith, 1998), the philosophy of
nationalism (Gilbert, 1998), nationalism and culture (Rocker, 1998/1936), the nation in
history (Smith, 2000), the ethics of nationalism (Moore, 2001), the antiquity of nations
(Smith, 2004), the identity of nations (Guibernau, 2007) and the cultural foundations of
nations (Smith, 2008), but none expressly on nations and prestige. Prestige is a latent
property in the works noted and many others. Sometimes it is proximate to glory or
adulation. Prestige appears in passing in Smith’s National Identity (1991), though not as
an accredited constitutive component of anything suggested by the title. Greenfeld (1992)
ascribes more meaning to prestige and its siblings, standing and dignity, notably
regarding the emergence of England as a conscious nation, or German perceptions of
an underrated status.
In Zernatto’s (1944) discussion on the etymology of ‘nation’, prestige is an
exclusivity that elevated some above the mass. In France during the decades preceding
the Revolution, the ‘nation’ was equated with an apolitical aristocratic and/or cultural
elite, which expanded and concurrently diluted when others ‘who had come into money
 102 S. Wood

and esteem tried to draw a noticeable line of demarcation between themselves and the
lower strata. Everything was staked on the finding of means to distinguish oneself as a
citizen from the folk’. Moreover, Zernatto argues, the ‘goal of the French Revolution was
not the raising of the plebs from below to an equality of right. The goal was more
moderate; to render more aristocratic a certain upper crust of the plebs’. When the nation
became ‘the distinguished and quasi-distinguished together – the word lost its exclusive
significance’. Therefore ‘The old concept of the nation’:

as representative of aristocrats was like ‘good addresses’ which the citizens wanted to have in
order not to be confused with the ‘peuple’. When they all migrated into the nation ‘quarter’,
the address lost its old quality. (Zernatto, 1944, p. 366)
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Other writers as diverse as Adam Smith (1759), Hegel (1975/1807, 1995/1821), Gramsci
(1999/1929–1935), Le Bon (1896), Freud (1921) and Canetti (1973) acknowledged
prestige, alternatively represented as esteem, virtue, recognition or hegemony. Bourdieu
(1984) conceived of prestige as a type of ‘symbolic capital’. Sociology locates the
concept in and applies it to ‘societies’ rather than ‘nations’, although ‘national societies’
are the commonly assumed framework. Weber (1922) most explicitly elucidated the
significance of prestige for national identity and state policy. He posited it as a
characteristic of stratification within an ethnic-cultural (cf. Banton, 2007) mega-
community1 and something that extended into the international sphere. The community
required politics, in the form of a strong state, to guarantee its preservation and facilitate
its compelled and complete unfolding. Drawing on Weber, Breiner (2004) shows that a
key purpose of the state was to uphold and articulate national prestige.
Weber’s influence is also apparent in Smith’s (1992, p. 61–62) observation that the
‘nation refers to a cultural and political bond which unites in a community of prestige all
those who share the same myths, memories, symbols and traditions’. Smith’s (2004,
2008) extensive mining of the past evokes the prospect of prestige being addressed in
more depth. Many national prestige claims are not based on achievements, real or
asserted, of the present generation but on those of one or more preceding it. The original
substance or imagined justification is located in the past. Prestige is sought, and
sometimes endowed, via intergenerational connections: ethnic, linguistic, cultural,
territorial, religious or civic. Why else promote a ‘golden age’ – which may not have
existed or been so golden – if not to revel in prestige, decades, centuries or millennia after
the events that supposedly created it? Prestige inherited or extracted from the past also
motivates and enables contemporary functional and political goals. As Smith (1997,
p. 39) describes, ‘The greater, the more glorious that antiquity appears, the easier it
becomes to mobilise people around a common culture, to unify the various groups of
which they are composed and to identify a shared national identity’.

Nations, nationalists and the ‘man in the street’

Since the emergence of national thinking, individuals who felt they had insufficient
esteem have sought it through identification with a nation. Elias (1996) argued that
individuals form images of the nations to which they belong and these images become
‘constituent’ of those they have of themselves. This transposable identification is not only
with ethnicity, culture, symbols or polity; it is also with the external recognition and
respect that these groups regard as rights. Judsanis (2001, p. 34) espouses that ‘nations
 National Identities 103

are very much like people’ and that ‘National pride is insulted when a nation is told that
is lacks originality, that it has a weak character, that it is mediocre. No one can love a
nation without qualities’. He then declares that ‘Nationalism has always been motivated
by comparisons and hurt feelings of esteem’ (Judsanis, 2001, p. 160). Without positive
signals from others, nations develop feelings of ressentiment. ‘In certain cases’, Greenfeld
(1992, p. 16) maintains, ‘ressentiment was the single most important factor determining
the specific terms in which national identity was defined’. These observations affirm
Kohn’s (1965, p. 9) proposition that ‘Nationalism is a state of mind’.
Handman (1921) outlined a trajectory from individual to national to nationalist
identity:
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The experiences which an individual has with the group in which he is born or in the midst of
which he lives, are experiences either of well-being or of ill-being because he is a member …
These experiences become organized into a system with the group as the central object … [and]
show itself in behavior as an agitated and agitating concern with the life and honor of the group.
When this agitation is more or less chronic it becomes the sentiment of nationalism. (p. 104)

Handman identified four types of nationalism, containing the same characteristics in

‘different combinations and emphases’. Prestige is a characteristic of all types in the
taxonomy, one of which is termed ‘prestige-nationalism’. This phenomenon:

finds its stimulus in the attitude of contempt or of insufficient esteem with which the nation
may be regarded, when, in its own estimation, its past achievements or its present unrealized
possibilities entitle it to a greater respect and consideration.

Handman contended that ‘reactions of the prestige-nationalist will depend on the

conditions which at any given time determine what shall or shall not be deemed
honourable and worthy of esteem among nations’. At the time, it was the ‘ability to
control foreign territories and peoples’:

as well as to interfere in the affairs of others—in a word, world-power—being the standard of

national honor, the efforts of the prestige-nationalist will be directed toward getting as much
of that commodity as possible. (Handman, 1921, pp. 111–112)

Nationalist demands transmit that a nation is deprived of something it allegedly deserves.

In an unorthodox portrayal, Orwell (1945) argued that the ‘abiding purpose of every
nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation …
in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality’ and ‘a nationalist is one who thinks
solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige’. One strategy of nationalists has been to
assert that their nation is a ‘special people’ (Hastings, 1999). Proclaiming it aims to
engender pride and unity, possibly to disguise a deficiency of ‘special’ qualities, in the
present if not also in the past. Many who belong to a nation so designated will believe it,
though to some degree all nations regard themselves as ‘special’. Weber (1922, p. 627) was
alert to ‘special nations’. Recourse to claims of this sort often correlated with linguistic
rivalry in the same territory:

Certainly the pretension of being a ‘special nation’ is cultivated, particularly through linkage
with the mass cultural corpus of the language community (overwhelmingly in the classical
land of language conflicts: Austria and likewise in Russia and eastern Prussia).2
 104 S. Wood

Konstantaras (2008, p. 709) details how diaspora intellectuals merged and idealised
themselves and their nations, noting that if:

personal worth and identity are to be determined by the group, then the group must acquire
the features that the nationalist intellectual holds most dear; it must more faithfully describe
the kind of individual he wishes himself to be (or to be seen as).

On the writer, Adamantios Koraes, Konstantaras (2008, p. 714) informs:

To one possessed of such considerable self-regard, the various slights Koraes was to suffer in
Europe on account of his nation’s ill fame could not perhaps rest easily on his conscience; his
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visceral and sustained reaction to this experience denotes a prideful refusal to accept the
secondary status that the condition of his nation appeared to impose upon him.

For intellectuals living in a foreign society, one lesson ‘was especially clear: The status of
the group to which they belonged (or were held to belong) had critical importance and
implications’ (Konstantaras, 2008, p. 715). In contrast to fervent intellectuals, most
members of any nation are recipients rather than proactive creators of national prestige.
Niebuhr (1932, p. 93) expounded that ‘the man in the street’:

with his lust for power and prestige thwarted by his own limitations and the necessities of
social life, projects his ego upon his nation and indulges his anarchic lusts vicariously. So the
nation is at one and the same time a check upon, and a final vent for, the expression of
individual egoism.

Here individual and mass, power and prestige, sentiment and material wants merge. This
is why nations can induce intense affinities. They are perceived by large numbers of
people as ‘providing them and their progeny with security and safety as well as status and
prestige in return for their loyalty and commitment’ (Druckman, 1994, p. 45).

Germany I: catch-up prestige

England’s three centuries of real-time prestige3 resulted from being the source of ‘the first
full manifestation of modern nationalism’, becoming the ‘leading nation of the European
community’, and exercising ‘this leadership in the very fields which characterised the
modern age’ (Kohn (1965, p. 16). This inspired ‘immense confidence’ and a sense of
being entrusted with ‘the mission of history’, enough to make the English consider them
to be a ‘chosen people’. Newman (1987) has shown this national feeling comprised
cultural and popular dimensions, incited by perceptions of excessive foreign, principally
French, influence. These sentiments informed policy and global adventurism. In a missive
from Lisbon to the Secretary of State Leoline Jenkins in London, Charles Fanshaw noted
the ‘reputation of our nation in foreign parts’ [National Archives (NA), 1683]. 1759 was
trumpeted as a ‘Year of Victories’ and England emerged from the Seven Years War as
Great Britain, the premier world power. Its achievement as the main shaper of the modern
era was manifested in naval and trade predominance. Indigenously, that encouraged pride
and self-assurance; exogenously, it stimulated awe, admiration, fear, envy and, for some,
a heightened, antagonistic national feeling.
One of those nations was France. Its grandiose ambitions were partly spurred by
rivalry with the British, who had once occupied Corsica, the birthplace of Napoleon.
 National Identities 105

Another was the ‘belated’ nation, Germany (Plessner, 1959). From Fichte to Treitschke,
German intellectuals berated a subordinate status, contributing to Bismarckian-
Wilhelmine Germany becoming a momentous instance of nationalist reaction. Its
dynamism, technical and scientific innovation and military-industrial capacity demon-
strated an abundance of hard power. But Germans wanted recognition in tangible and
intangible forms. Striving for that impelled a closer merger of nation and state, and
divergence from Herder’s cultural project focused on language, literature and custom.
Weber conveyed how, for the Germany of that era, ideational or normative stimuli were
entwined with economic or military interests and goals. Prestige imbues and bridges these
domains. An ‘emotional influence’ felt by the ‘masses’ is inspired by sensations of
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prestige. It permeated the Wilhelmine elite, for whom prestige merged with responsibility
for following generations. It is they that ‘most strongly instil in themselves this ideal
pathos of power-prestige’. A fusion of instrumental and value dimensions is apparent in
Weber’s observation that the ‘naked prestige of “power”’ transforms into ‘the idea of the
nation’:

‘Nation’ is a concept, which, if at all distinct, then in any case cannot be defined according to
any empirical communal qualities of those counted as belonging to it … [members of]
certain human groups expect a specific feeling of solidarity from one another vis-à-vis others,
it belongs therefore to the sphere of values. (Weber, 1922, p. 627)

Weber (1922, p. 629) then declared that ‘for its bearers, the idea of the “nation” stands in
very intimate relation to “prestige”-interests’. In other words, prestige – enjoyed, averred
or sought – is a defining feature of the nation. It was appealed to as a device to overcome
societal divisions. Some thought it attainable or enhanced through imperialist policy.
Wehler (1972) argued that:

If in Wilhelmine Weltpolitik the internal and now also the foreign policy prestige element
was much stronger than in previous years, one cannot only explain this in social-
psychological terms by reference to the rising nationalism, the overflowing feeling of
strength, and the wilful need for validation linked to the economic boom since 1896.
(Wehler, 1972, p. 498–499)

Tensions and divisions with the evolving polity, including demands for voice and benefits
by working classes, had to be muted, if not overcome, with ‘prestige successes’
(Prestigeerfolge) externally. Wehler (1994, pp. 140–141) later expanded on ‘prestige
politics as compensation’, a means of placating class conflict. While social policy entailed
the provision of material assistance and security, the ‘power elite’ deduced that for the
rising middle class ‘additional forms of psychic compensation were required’:

Here lay the societal roots of the propensity for prestige thinking and prestige politics in
strata that did not share the late-feudal honor code of the ruling group, for whom prestige and
validation were highly regarded.

For Wehler, ‘exploitation of the prestige complex for purposes of rule offered the actual
target group (namely all who counted themselves among the middle class) a correspond-
ing policy’. Prestige was invoked to orient real or potential class allegiances – or religious
and regional identifications – to the nation:
 106 S. Wood

A focused prestige politics could, within certain parameters and for a time, both compensate
the socio-economic grievances and draw advantage from this ideological context: that is,
agreement to government policy… for compensation purposes social policy and a
complementary prestige policy interlocked, so that German class society did not slide off
the rails. (Wehler, 1994, p. 141)

Other authors disputed that interpretation, though not that prestige had a role in the
politics. Hildebrand (1989) acknowledged internal pressures on Germany’s elite, before
all Bismarck, but placed more emphasis on the international context and external factors.
The new German nation-state was one among several great powers, all with prestige
concerns embedded in foreign policy postures, some through colonial expansion, military
build-up or feelings of revanche. According to Hildebrand, Bismarck’s ‘pragmatic peace
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policy’ forced him onto the ‘defensive’ domestically. Not only in Germany, but all of
Europe, ‘the statecraft of the few was overrun by the passion of the many’. Post-Bismarck
this dynamic led to more intemperate demands for recognition as a ‘great power among
great powers, as a state in the state system’. In simple terms, Germany wanted acceptance
as the equal of Britain and France, and an imprimatur to practice what they did. In a
famous speech to the Reichstag in 1897, Bernhard von Bülow, State Secretary in the
Foreign Ministry, declared:

The times when the German cedes to one of his neighbours the earth, to another the sea, and
reserves the heavens for himself … these times are over … We must demand that the German
missionary, the German entrepreneur, German goods, the German flag and the German ship
are respected just like those of other powers … We do not want to put anyone in the shade,
but we also demand our place in the sun. [Bundesarchiv (BA), 1897]

Germany II: stability and attraction

From the founding of the Federal Republic in 1949, a psychological and reputational
rehabilitation project accompanied Germany’s physical and political reconstruction.
National attitudes and demeanour changed fundamentally in little more than a generation
(cf. Schwarz, 1985). German archival sources [BA 1952–1956; BA 1957–1962; BA
1961; BA 1963–1972; Politischen Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes (PA), 1973–1978]
detail the seriousness with which a new Deutschlandbild was formulated, projected and
monitored. The archives also impress a concern not to slight the prestige of Germany’s
important post-war partner, France. Those decades involved a clear hierarchy in the
Franco-German relationship, a situation accentuated by the political division of the
German nation. As long as rank was maintained bilaterally, the French and (West)
German states could potentially share prestige as a ‘motor’ of European integration. This
informal ranking influenced, and was influenced by, the self-images of the respective
nations. Forty years later, tensions during the period of German reunification were
provoked primarily by French concerns about rank in Europe and the world. Prestige
competition was exhibited in contests over institutional appointments and the official
status and promotion of languages.
Despite the negative effects of cyclical economic changes and occasional controver-
sies, over the past two to three generations first West and then reunified Germany has
steadily accumulated respect and admiration. Now, in a contemporary EU featured by
recession and disorder, a ‘status conscious Germany’ (Hellmann, 2009) is a pole of
stability. It produces high quality, desired goods, returns consistent trade surpluses, and its
 National Identities 107

international engagement is well regarded. Its foreign policy is respected, if not always
concurred with. Germany has reached a level of prestige it has not previously
experienced. This has been achieved through impressive economic performance and the
credible projection of a pluralist and self-critical nation. German Foreign Ministry
officials emphasised that trust and respect could only be gained through authenticity and
transparency in the presentation and pursuit of national goals (Author interview 2012a,
German Foreign Ministry, Berlin, June).4 The post-war era demonstrates a gradual rise on
a scale of recognition, from bare acceptance to (a sometimes grudging) acknowledgement
of achievement, to recent surveys reporting that Germany is the most admired nation in
the EU, or the world, and has the most respected leader (British Broadcasting Corporation
[BBC], 2013; PEW, 2012). Germany’s ‘civilising process’ does not negate the relevance
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of prestige for the nation or state policy. It indicates that what is considered prestigious in
the present is not necessarily the same as in the past.
In comparison, Greece is suffering debilitating financial and socio-economic woes
and the pressures of a damaged reputation. Most of what prestige the Greek nation retains
is due to its ancient history (cf. Konstantaras, 2008, p. 703, 710). Adverse circumstances
precipitated a discourse of grievance, and political opportunism, in which Germany was
targeted as the protagonist of policies that degraded Greece. Rhetorical attacks featured
by references to Nazism and war betrayed inferiority and persecution complexes.
Germans were insulted and communicated a distrust of Greece. The character, dignity
and prestige of each nation were questioned. Emotions were vented in European and
global media and in the streets.

Prestige and International Relations: theory and practice

Domestic social relations have parallels in international affairs (Bull, 1977; Watson, 1992;
Wight, 1979). Nations cannot be prestigious without other nations; national conscious-
ness is simultaneously international consciousness. Handman (1921, p. 121) concluded
that ‘As long as fear and the quest for prestige prevail in international relations, the
nationalistic politician will not have to transfer his endeavours to other fields of
adventure’. Kacos (2011) also examines a ‘quest for prestige’, explicitly connected to
respect. Wolf (2008) differentiates respect analytically from prestige yet suggests that
either the two conditions overlap or they are both absent. Elias (1996/1989, p. 4)
discerned that perceptions of rank among states, the political containers and representa-
tives of nations, functioned as barometers of prestige:

It may be tempting to say, ‘So what? Who cares whether one’s own state is a first-, or
second- or third-rate centre of power?’ … it is a proven fact that the members of states and
other social units which have lost their claim to a position of highest rank … often require a
long time, even centuries to come to terms with this … and the consequent lowering of their
self-esteem.

While Connor (1978) and others have impressed that state and nation are terms frequently
and incorrectly used interchangeably, each informs the identity of the other. International
theory has underplayed the content of state jurisdictions; that is, their populations. For
Bloom (1990, p. 56), ‘Power politics create a state, but its endurance is guaranteed only if
the psychological nation is built’. The state needs ‘not only deference, but also devotion’
 108 S. Wood

from the nation. Kowert (1998) affirms their mutual relevance. He argues that ‘Leviathan
needs a people since, in principle at least, it is the people’ and ‘investigations of national
identity must reckon with both the nation and the state’ (p. 6). Disciplinary or other
assumptions of a world of nation-states cannot be challenged or defended ‘without a
theory of identity’ (Kowert, 1998, p. 34; cf. Kaufmann, 2008), which must comprise
internal and external dimensions.
One of diplomacy’s chief concerns is with maintaining national prestige, while not
offending that of others. As a quality possessed or a motivation because it is absent,
prestige is a key property of international political psychology. Prestige competition has
often intensified after nations have obtained their own states. Yet scholars who have
explored the interaction of nationalism and international society or international relations
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(Kellas, 1991; Mayall, 1990; Woodwell, 2007) have little to say of prestige. Either it is
considered not important enough, or taken for granted, or overlooked. Prestige tends to
remain implicit, occasionally surfacing. Hechter (2000) locates it, initially at least, within
the category of patriotism: ‘the desire to raise the prestige and power of one’s own nation-
state relative to rivals in the international system’. He differentiates patriotism from
nationalism because the former denotes that ‘the boundaries of the nation and governance
unit are already congruent’ (p. 17). In this understanding, nationalism necessarily means
they are not, though there are examples that suggest otherwise. Kedourie (1992, p. 68)
also distinguishes between patriotism and nationalism. National identity is an ingredient
of both. Patriotism could be interpreted as reflecting confidence that a nation is
prestigious, while nationalism expresses, among other things, the perception that a nation
is not prestigious enough.
Despite their frequent personification (Wendt, 2004), states do not have consciousness
or feelings. Decision-makers and shapers, and the populations that their decisions affect,
do. Prestige is an important consideration of statecraft because it engages publics, which
are appealed to or otherwise designated in national terms. Morgenthau’s (1967) Politics
among Nations connotes states, but the political elites he prioritises are also members of
nations. Waltz (1979) portrayed the cold war as a systemic contest of power apparently
devoid of ideational, normative or emotive elements, and even of nations per se. In that
period both superpowers supported and drew on nationalist movements, and compre-
hended that recognition and dignity were important motivations for them. Goals of
ideational fulfilment informed another nationalist wave since 1989. Prominent realist
scholars recently posited affinities between nationalism and realism (Mearsheimer, 2011;
Walt, 2011), perhaps indicating a minor rapprochement between contrasting theoretical
schools.
Ostensibly posited against the ‘realisms’ of Morgenthau and others, Ned Lebow’s
(2010) arguments suggest that his title does refer to nations, with their psychologies,
emotions and social ties, rather than to bureaucratic, instrumental states. National identity
directs loyalty to the state, whose bearers expect material and psychological benefits, both
of which enhance self-esteem, in return (Ned Lebow, 2010, p. 166). Decisions in the
domain of foreign affairs that are influenced by considerations of honour require an
underlying social consensus that must ‘transcend class or other distinctions’ (Ned Lebow,
2010, p. 72).5
At any time, only a few or only a single nation can exert great influence over others.
During the Cold War the USA set a strategic direction for half the world, accompanied by a
 National Identities 109

popular culture that became globally diffused. In this period, and more so after it, the
external influence of the American civic nation and state made some others envious and
resentful. One is the People’s Republic of China (PRC), whose leadership is among the
most preoccupied with national prestige, an extension of the profound import of standing
and ‘face’ at individual and family levels (Loewenberg, 2011). The PRC’s rulers and many
ordinary Chinese identify with a 6000-year-old civilisation and are aggrieved that a
250-year-old interloper is the world’s most powerful military, political and cultural entity.
The USA is a ‘highly salient peer competitor against whom Chinese define their national
identity’ (Gries, 2005, p. 254, emphasis in original). The state elite demands recognition of
the nation’s past and incipient greatness. A ‘patriotic education’ for Chinese students
comprises a code of conduct forbidding ‘activities that harm the dignity and honour of the
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motherland’. Students studying at US universities were involved in the ‘defense and

protection of China’s international image’ (He & Guo, 2000, p. 3, 26). Wu (2008, p. 470)
depicts Mao’s communism as Chinese nationalism, now revived by his successors in a ‘new
and resurgent’ form that ‘celebrated the rise of China (Zhongguo de jueqi)’:

as a world-class power in serious and popular publications, delighting in this ‘epochal’

national achievement, citing various statistics from both domestic and international sources
to support such self-congratulation.

An ambitious space programme, the virulent Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute and other
rivalry with Japan, a drive for supremacy at the Olympics games and staging China’s own
in Beijing are examples of a relentless obsession with national prestige.
The other major international revisionist is Russia. Having comprised most of the
Soviet Union’s territory and population, Russia was the main provider and now successor
of the ‘Soviet people’. Vladimir Putin has tried to reconstitute the Russian nation and
state as vessels of prestige (cf. Kaufman, 1996; Korostelina, 2008; Laruelle, 2009;
Ringmar, 2002; Sakwa, 2008;). Rasizade (2008, p. 549) informs:

Putin’s efforts to restore Russia’s standing as a great power in the international arena are
enormously popular among the Russians who remain bitter about the economic ordeal and
foreign policy mortification of the 1990s. The yearning for resurgence of Russia’s prestige is
now being expressed throughout the society, in areas as diverse as sports and the arts.

Putin draws on the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany as a platform to appeal to and
promote Russian nationalism. Some contemporary heroes of the Russian Federation
receive their awards on a hill in what was Stalingrad (Locke, 2012). The same sentiments
underpin assertions such as planting the Russian flag on the Arctic seabed.
While Russian and Chinese prestige-seeking has global dimensions, each has regional
challenges – Chechens, Tibet, Uighurs – that threaten territorial integrity and Great
Russian or Han predominance. For Russian nationalists the de jure independence of some
contiguous nations, including Georgia, against which Russia fought a brief war, and the
Baltics, which have deconstructed Soviet war memorials, discriminated against Russian
speakers, and joined the EU and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), diminished
Russia’s prestige. For the PRC the de facto independence of Taiwan and its rejection of
PRC sovereignty claims have similar effects.
 110 S. Wood

What is not a nation? The UN and the EU

The UN and the EU are neither nations nor states, but are composed of both. The UN
does not combine and reflect the accumulated individual prestige quanta of its
membership. It lacks the history, culture, emotive identification or power resources. It
has no language of its own. Prestige is positional and competitive; the UN’s supranational
humanist universalism is posited against that. States may be persuaded to adhere to UN
guidelines or resolutions for reputational reasons, but they will also ignore it if
countervailing imperatives are strong enough. Nonetheless, being or becoming a member
of the UN Security Council is a prestige issue.
The EU has official ideals similar to those of the UN. For Cram (2009) a ‘banal
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Europeanism’ is viable because it treats all nations as nominally equal and does not
challenge their prestige. According to Guibernau (2011, p. 311) ‘European identity cannot
be expected to follow the pattern of national identity simply because the EU is not a
nation-state let alone a nation’. It is ‘a new genre … born out of the actions of an elite
determined to weaken nationalism and to build a united Europe’. Moreover, ‘national
identity and European identity are fundamentally different: the sense of belonging and
attachment that defines the former tends to be replaced by an instrumentalist, rational or
functionalist approach regarding membership of the latter’. While (some) political elites
want to nurture ‘feelings of loyalty towards the EU’ they simultaneously do not want this
to ‘result in refocusing a people’s loyalty away from the nation-state’ (Guibernau, 2011,
p. 312). It is then contended (Guibernau, 2011, p. 314) that ‘the EU’s founding fathers’,
those elites who were ‘determined to weaken nationalism’:

did not confer sufficient weight to the need to construct a European identity able to replace
national identities and nationalism because, ultimately, they sought to preserve their own
nations and the identities associated with them within the larger framework provided by
the EU.

Rather than replacing national identities, or becoming a powerful alternative, the EU

demonstrates how embedded national thinking and national affinities still are in Europe
(Antonsich, 2009). The EU has not generated sufficient prestige to displace or compare
with its leading members. For some others, the prestige loss through non-membership
would have been greater than the prestige gained by the EU’s acceptance of them. The
‘European communities’ are not ‘imagined’ with the intensity that national communities
are (Anderson, 1983). A Foreign and Commonwealth Office official opined that whatever
it might be, ‘EU prestige cannot be the sum of 27 national prestiges’ [Author interview
2012b, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), London, May], an observation also
plausibly applicable to the UN. Interviewees at EU institutions transmitted a professional
commitment to the EU, but not that they were working for an especially prestigious
organisation or that ‘personal status’ would rise as a consequence (Author Interview
2012c, European External Action Service, Brussels, May; Author Interview 2012d,
European External Action Service, Brussels, May; Author Interview 2012e, European
Commission, Brussels, May; Author Interview 2012f, European Commission, Brussels,
May; Author Interview 2012g, European External Action Service, Brussels, May).
According to one source, EU idealism ‘has worn off’. Any prestige the EU may have for
nations wanting to join it is linked to the promise of better material conditions (Author
Interview 2012c, European External Action Service, Brussels, May).
 National Identities 111

Conclusions
This article has examined theoretical, historical and contemporary aspects and examples
of relations between national identity and prestige. Prestige is relevant for positive
(achievement, victory, admiration) or negative (inferiority, defeat, disrepute) reasons.
Nations whose claims to prestige in the present are not credible may seek it by invoking a
purported greatness of the past. Prestige persists as an overt goal or tacit assumption in
conceptions of nations conveyed by academic studies and held by leaders and publics.
In societies that have become more cosmopolitan and individualistic, the disposition
of national identity has altered and the likelihood of aggressive nationalism has waned.
Not everyone is especially disturbed if their nation, sometimes judged through the prism
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of a state or government, is low in the estimation of others. In any nation, however, a

critical mass is concerned about what others think of them. Most want their nation to be
admired and are enthused by the transmission of esteem. National aspirations can be seen,
heard and read on a daily basis: a sporting triumph, an engineering feat, a diplomatic
success, a Nobel Prize, an appointment to eminent international office or other impressive
attainments. Alternatively, incidents or developments may discredit the nation and
diminish its prestige. The ‘man in the street’ basks in the reflected glory attributed to
compatriots, whether singular personalities, elevated groups, or the undifferentiated
national mass. Or he suffers the nation’s modest status. A state or government may be
held responsible for this. In the political sphere, prestige is aligned with authority and
legitimacy. If a state or government has a prestige deficit, it reflects negatively on the
nation, and pressures for transformation or removal will emerge. The undervaluing of
national prestige by other nations or their states is another matter. In such cases, a nation
may petition its state to rectify the situation.
What may be prestigious in one era is not in another. The means to acquire it change.
For millennia, war was a means to prestige for combatants, regimes and entire
populations. In the present, peaceful pursuits and qualities, such as network centrality,
cultural radiance, lifestyle attraction, ‘moral capital’, sporting prowess, language or the
revelations of a rich and creative history, are more likely to realise national prestige (Ned
Lebow, 2010). Nations are now portrayed as brands (GfK/Anholt, 2012) and the nation
with which a product or service or government statement is associated will affect
responses: to buy, reject, trust or doubt. Quality and credibility in commercial,
technological, cultural or political spheres engender prestige. Shortcomings diminish it.

Notes
1. A Gemeinschaft that also lived as a Gesellschaft.
2. All translations are the author’s unless otherwise noted.
3. It is a historical irony that England’s – or Britain’s – prestige was to diminish after it had shared
victory in the biggest conflict of all time.
4. All interviews referred to in this article were conducted in person by the author and were semi-
structured with listed questions asked verbally. In each instance, potential interviewee responses
were open ended.
5. Ned Lebow then emphasises a certain type of stratification as important: those who can and
those who cannot compete for honour.

Funding
This work was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
 112 S. Wood

Notes on contributor
Steve Wood is Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University,
Sydney, Australia. He has published four books and many articles including in International
Politics, Cooperation and Conflict, and Geopolitics. The author gratefully acknowledges the
assistance of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

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