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Nationalism and the Cohesive Society: A Multilevel Analysis of the

Interplay Among Diversity, National Identity, and Social Capital
Across 27 European Societies
Tim Reeskens and Matthew Wright
Comparative Political Studies published online 21 August 2012
DOI: 10.1177/0010414012453033
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Nationalism and the XX(X) 1–29

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Multilevel Analysis of the http://cps.sagepub.com
Interplay Among Diversity,

National Identity, and
Social Capital Across 27
European Societies
Tim Reeskens1,2 and Matthew Wright3
Abstract
A spate of work has demonstrated tensions between ethno-cultural diversi-
ty and social capital. Some have suggested that attachment to the nation can
foster cross-group trust, particularly if this national self-definition is “civic”
in character rather than “ethnic” (the Miller thesis). Similarly, others have
argued that civic nations are less likely to suffer reduced social capital in
response to increased diversity, as the sense of threat that typically emerges
in ethnically diverse contexts will be mitigated (the Putnam thesis). The
authors test these hypotheses on 27 countries using both contextual-level
data and the latest wave of the European Values Study (2008). Though the
evidence is mixed on civic nationalism, the authors find strong evidence that
ethnic nationalism goes hand-in-hand with reduced social capital and that it
increases the negative social impact of diversity. So although this study only
partially confirms the benefits of civic nationalism, it clearly underlines the
costs of its ethnic variety.
1
Department of Political Science, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2
Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
3
Department of Government, American University, Washington DC, USA
Corresponding Author:
Tim Reeskens, University of Amsterdam, Department of Political Science, OZ Achterburgwal
237, 1012 DL Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Email: t.reeskens@uva.nl

2 Comparative Political Studies XX(X)
Keywords
social capital, nationalism, ethno-cultural diversity, multilevel analysis,
European Values Study
Scholarship warning of the tense relationship between ethnic diversity and

social capital first emerged from the American case (Alesina & La Ferrara,
2000, 2002; Hero, 2003; Putnam, 2007) and is well summarized by Robert
Putnam’s (2007, p. 157) warning that “diversity, at least in the short run,
seems to bring out the turtle in all of us.” Across the Atlantic, this proposition
appears more complicated, with British (Letki, 2008) and Dutch (Tolsma,
van der Meer, & Gesthuizen, 2009) studies at odds, and cross-national work
finding only limited evidence of it on various indicators of social cohesion
(Gesthuizen, van der Meer, & Scheepers, 2009; Hooghe, Reeskens, Stolle, &
Trappers, 2009).
These competing findings have triggered a new interest in how the rela-
tionship might depend on context. Evidence remains scarce, and what little
work presently exists points to the importance of institutional setting (Hooghe,
Reeskens, & Stolle, 2007; Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010). Here, our interest is
less in institutions and more in political culture. In “E Pluribus Unum,”
Putnam (2007) argues that societies premised on a civic and inclusive under-
standing of nationhood are better able to overcome the negative consequences
of increasing ethno-cultural diversity. In this respect, Putnam follows the
logic of David Miller (1995), who claims that national identity, particularly
when limned along civic lines, fosters trust and other aspects of horizontal
solidarity among fellow citizens.
Trumpeting the putative virtues of civic nationalism has become popular in
the public realm as well. To give but one example, in a famous 2009 Versailles
speech former French President Nicolas Sarkozy asked, “Who does not see
that our integration model isn’t working any more? Instead of producing
equality, it produces inequality. Instead of producing cohesion, it creates
resentment.” Simultaneously, the French government organized a debate on
national identity with the guiding premise being that shared adherence to the
French model, including respect for national norms and symbols, decreases
social distances between natives and immigrants and generates cohesion.
Whether this argument has merit, however, remains an open question.
This article takes as point of departure the question whether people’s
social conceptions of what is required for membership in their national in-
group can influence the social fabric of European societies in general, and
particularly as diversity increases. More concretely, we develop specific

Reeskens and Wright 3
hypotheses about how different dimensions of nationalism—namely the

ubiquitous ethnic–civic distinction (Brubaker, 1992), where the former refers
to full citizenship status depends on blood and soil and the latter to nation-
hood based on obedience to the liberal values of the nation-state—shape
social capital differently. Using both country-level data on immigrant diver-
sity and responses to the latest wave of the European Values Survey (2008),
we demonstrate that national identity does matter for social capital. More
specifically, we find mixed results for the role of civic nationalism, but strong
evidence that ethnic nationalism is associated with lower levels of social
capital, particularly generalized trust. Moreover, this latter relationship is
strengthened as diversity increases.
Literature Review
Across the vast literature on nationalism and national identity, references to
nations as “imagined communities” are common. They are groups of people
with a common “we-feeling,” a sense of mutual belonging and obligation
(Anderson, 1991; Deutsch, 1966); nationhood is “a claim on people’s loyalty,
on their attention, on their solidarity” (Brubaker, 2004, p. 116). Although
there are of course nations without states, the present work takes individuals’
conceptions of their home country as the predominant identity of interest,
and uses of the terms nation, nationalism, and national identity throughout
in reference to nation-states.1
There is a growing consensus in a number of different literatures that
national identity can facilitate social cohesion. According to David Miller
(1995, p. 140; also see Miller, 2000), one of the strongest proponents of this
argument, national identity increases the likelihood that people will place
trust in their fellow citizens: “Trust requires solidarity not merely within
groups but across them, and this in turn depends upon a common identifica-
tion of the kind that nationality alone can provide.” According to Will
Kymlicka (2001, p. 225), this kind of trust is essential because it encourages
us to make sacrifices for “anonymous others whom we do not know, will
probably never meet, and whose ethnic descent, religion and way of life dif-
fers from our own.” The central premise is that a common shared identity
functions as a category superordinate to ethnic, religious, or linguistic ties
and can function as a kind of glue that holds society together.
This argument about the positive consequences of in-group loyalty for
social cohesion has appeared in other literatures as well. For example, social
identity theory predicts that a sense of collective identity engenders the pri-
oritization of group welfare over individualism in decision making (Kramer

& Brewer, 1984) and that a strong overarching national identity can mitigate
competition between societal subgroups (e.g., Gaertner & Dovidio, 2000;
Transue, 2007). From the social capital scholarship too, the logic that loyalty
toward the nation-state strengthens the social fabric is present. In the appro-
priate parlance, the nation-state can be considered as what is referred to as
“bridging” social capital (Paxton, 1999; Putnam, 2000): It brings together
people of various different class, religious, and ethnic backgrounds under a
common banner and generates solidarity on the basis of it.
Social-psychological work on national identity has emphasized its multi-
faceted nature, distinguishing between its salience to individuals, the affect
they feel toward it (patriotism, national chauvinism, and so on), and its nor-
mative social boundaries (e.g., Citrin & Sears, 2009). To date, Miller’s (and
others’) argument about the cohesive features of national identity has in its
basic form been largely framed around affect—a strong sense of attachment
to the nation should foster higher levels of social cohesion. Here, our empha-
sis is on national identity’s normative content, or, in other words, the criteria
individuals use as “symbolic boundaries” (Lamont & Molnar, 2002) to dis-
tinguish “us” from “them.” The importance of this distinction cannot be
overstated, the reason being that if strong cognitive and affective attach-
ments to the nation can serve to generate fellow feeling and loyalty within a
diverse society, it is imperative to know where the symbolic boundaries of
that identity lie (Theiss-Morse, 2009).
And, if history tells us anything, these boundaries are varied, malleable,
and contested. Scholars of nationalism have constructed models of nation-
alist types from the study of laws and institutions, texts of popular culture,
official speeches and celebrations, and the content of public education.2 A
long lineage of studies culminating in the work of Greenfeld (1992) and
Brubaker (1992) distinguishes between two historical models of nation-
hood, the “ethnic” and the “civic.” The ethnic type defines itself on the
principle of descent; the nation is a marriage of blood and soil. Objective
and ascriptive criteria define whether one is considered a “national” or not,
and citizenship is in turn accorded along jus sanguinis principles. Civic
nationalism, on the other hand, is premised on the jus soli principle of devo-
tion to basic liberal values.
For the most part, empirical research on normative conceptions of nation-
hood has been preoccupied with whether or not they exist in public opinion,
and how they generate hostility against out-group members. On the former
question, researchers have identified civic and ethnic conceptions of national
identity at the mass level, both across countries and within them (e.g., Jones
& Smith, 2001; Reeskens & Hooghe, 2010; Wright, Citrin, & Wand, 2012).

On the latter, civic and ethnic nationalism both encourage prejudice against
immigrants, though less so for the former variant than the latter (Ceobanu &
Escandell, 2008; Citrin & Wright, 2008; Kunovich, 2009; Maddens, Billiet,
& Beerten, 2000; Pehrson, Vignoles, & Brown, 2009).
Where argument and evidence have been scarce, however, is in the issue
of how these disparate conceptions of national identity shape indicators of
horizontal social solidarity and social capital. This matters because there is
reason to suspect that ethnic and civic forms of national identity will affect
social capital differently. The core principle of civic nationalism is that it
reaches out toward “outsiders”: newcomers and ethno-linguistic and reli-
gious minorities are regarded as fully fledged conationals so long as they are
willing to adopt the basic values and norms of the host country. As such, this
closely resembles what is typically referred to in the social capital literature
as “generalized trust,” namely, people’s willingness to trust others even
though they might be different from themselves (Uslaner, 2002). Accordingly,
we expect that “civic nationalists” will express higher levels of generalized
trust and that they will be more highly involved in public life. By contrast,
ethnic nationalism is, at its core, inward looking and inherently exclusive.
Whether immigrants and minorities obey to the norms and values of the host
country, they will never be considered conationals without ancestral ties to
it. This reflects not trust of the generalized kind, but rather what many in the
social capital literature call “particularized trust” (Uslaner, 2002). Along
these lines, our expectation is that individuals endorsing an ethnic concep-
tion of nationhood should evince lower levels of generalized trust, and be
less involved in public life. This leads to two hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): Respondents endorsing civic nationalism will

express higher levels of social capital.
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Respondents endorsing ethnic nationalism will
express lower levels of social capital.
A related perspective on the relationship between national identity and social

capital is, albeit indirectly, raised in Putnam’s (2007) study of diversity in the
United States; therein, he suggests that “civic” nationhood can tamp down the
negative effects of neighborhood ethnic diversity on various indicators of social
capital. Based on the work of Mirel (2002), he argues that American orientation
toward minorities has shifted from predominantly ethnic toward civic, and that
this civic logic has had a positive influence on the social consequences of diver-
sity (Putnam, 2007, p. 163). Simply put, a national community premised on
norms of democratic behavior (rather than a marriage of blood and soil) is more

likely to embrace—and less likely to be threatened by—an influx of ethno-cul-

turally diverse immigrants into its population.
Though this argument has yet to be tested empirically, similar ones have
been made in related work. A premise in the institutional approach toward
social capital is that it is fostered by equality and fairness (Kumlin &
Rothstein, 2005; Rothstein & Stolle, 2008; Uslaner, 2002). Institutional
equality mutes competition, the argument goes, leading to more social har-
mony. Furthermore, institutional sanction of minority culture (e.g., political
“multiculturalism”) also appears to cushion negative social effects of diver-
sity (e.g., Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010). Along similar lines, Weldon’s (2006)
study of ethnocentrism in Western Europe found lower prejudice in coun-
tries that had adopted more civic and “multicultural” immigration regimes,
and higher in societies operating on the jus sanguinis model.
None of this work explicitly addresses the question we ask here: Namely,
how do ethnic and civic nationalism, conceived in social rather than institu-
tional terms, moderate the relationship between immigrant diversity and
social capital? Still, both Putnam’s insight and institution-based work sug-
gest that more socially civic societies may be better equipped to handle
immigrant diversity than socially ethnic ones. More formally, this leads to
the following pair of hypotheses:
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Residents of societies where civic nationalism is

high are better able to reconcile diversity with social capital than
those where it is not.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): Residents of societies where ethnic nationalism is
high are less able to reconcile diversity with social capital than those
where it is not.
These hypotheses suggest that relationship between contextual diversity

and individual expressions of social capital (the “hunkering down” effect)
can be moderated by the extent to which a society is, on the whole, ethnic or
civic. Even so, the effect of national identity in this regard is still at its core a
social-psychological process, and a given individual’s national self-conception
may differ sharply from his or her society on average. So adopting a similar
logic as with H3 and H4, we can also bring Putnam and Miller together and
tease out hypotheses about the potential interaction between ethnic and civic
nationalism at the individual level, diversity in social context, and individual-
level social capital:
Hypothesis 5 (H5): Individual-level civic nationalism should decrease the

negative relationship between social capital and contextual diversity.

Hypothesis 6 (H6): Individual-level ethnic nationalism should exacer-

bate the negative relationship between social capital and contextual
diversity.
Data and Method

In our analysis, we employ the 2008 wave of the European Values Study
(EVS), which is unique in that it queries respondents about both social capital
and their conceptions of what it takes to achieve full membership in their
national community. This cross-national survey project has been carried out
in more than 40 European countries, comprising the 27 member states of the
European Union (EU) in addition to a number of post-Soviet societies. In this
article, we restrict ourselves to 24 EU member states plus three Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states.3
Dependent Variables
In this study, our outcomes of interest are based on Putnam’s definition of
social capital, namely, those structural and cultural features of social organi-
zation that facilitate cooperation (Putnam, 1993, 2000). An exemplar of the
cultural side of social capital is generalized trust, usually taken to indicate
trust in people who are different from the respondent (Uslaner, 2002). From
the EVS, we employ the time-tested question, “Generally speaking, would
you say that most people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in
dealing with people?” which was, in line with the World Values Study,
offered with a dichotomous response scale.
To tap the structural components of social capital, we derive two further
dichotomous variables: associational membership and voluntary involve-
ment. Both are created from a list of specific organizations for which respon-
dents could indicate whether they (a) belong to and (b) have done voluntary
work for each.4 The variables have been dichotomized, with 0 reflecting no
associational membership or voluntary involvement and 1 reflecting mem-
bership or involvement in at least one organization.
Independent Variables
The independent variable at the center of this analysis is respondents’ sym-
bolic conceptions of their nation’s social boundaries, operationalized by
questions querying the importance of civic and ethnic traits. Following the
empirical literature on this subject, we tap civic nationalism with respon-
dents’ rated importance of “respect for [country]’s political institutions and

laws,” whereas ethnic nationalism is tapped by the level of importance they

ascribe to “hav[ing] [country]’s ancestry.”
Two caveats are warranted about these measures. First, cross-national
research has for the most part not focused on single measures such as these,
but rather underlying dimensions of ethnic or civic nationalism composing
multiple indicators. Although this is possible in the EVS, researchers have
warned about problems of measurement bias in comparative research using
this approach to these indicators of national identity. Depending on the
country, some traits (such as, for instance, “speaking the national language”
or “holding citizenship”) are both theoretically ambiguous with respect to
the ethnic/civic distinction and, perhaps not surprising, load inconsistently
on these latent concepts from one country to the next (Heath, Martin, &
Spreckelsen, 2009; Reeskens & Hooghe, 2010). For this reason, we focus
our analysis on the “purest” possible items in the ethnic and civic categories,
eliding the difficult issue of teasing out latent factors.
In addition, it should also be noted that this measurement strategy is not
well suited to capturing the ethnic/civic distinction as developed in the
regime-level nationalism literature, the reason being that it is treated there
as a trade-off: the ethnic and civic categories are mutually exclusive, at
least in an ideal-typic sense. On the other hand, there is no forced trade-off
in this battery, and almost no one answering it in the EVS or any other
major national or cross-nation survey treats their answers as if there were
simply because they do not have to (Wright et al., 2012). Rather, this bat-
tery is Guttman-esque: people who think that “true nationals” need to com-
ply with the political systems do not necessarily want to impose a cultural
blood tie as a requirement for conationality, whereas those feeling that
ancestry is important will find it self-evident that “true nationals” also com-
ply with ruling institutions and laws. As a result, wherever possible we
consider both measures of nationalism simultaneously in our models to
cancel out the common variance between them and produce a better picture
of their unique effects.5
To test Putnam’s thesis that civic nations are better able to reconcile
diversity with social capital, both the civic and ethnic individual-level
independent variables are aggregated to the national level. Though these
conceptions of nationhood are weakly but positively correlated at the indi-
vidual level, their aggregate correlation is strongly negative (–.54): Being
a highly civic nation and being a highly ethnic nation are to a large extent
mutually exclusive. Since the correlation is quite high, we cannot examine
them simultaneously; nevertheless, since a correlation coefficient of –.54
is not a one-to-one relation, we present results based on each measure
independently.

In H3–H6, our main concern is in testing whether and how national iden-
tity moderates the linkage between ethno-cultural diversity and social capital.
For this reason, we need harmonized data on the proportion of each country’s
population that is foreign-born, which we obtain from the UN Population
Division Statistics (2011). Though the preference in some other studies on
national-level diversity has been for OECD measures (Gesthuizen et al.,
2009; Hooghe et al., 2009), for which information on a large number of coun-
tries in our sample is unavailable, UN and OECD estimates are highly cor-
related among common countries,6 and other studies have fruitfully employed
the UN figures we use here (Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010). Because UN esti-
mates are available for 2005 and 2010 but not 2008, we calculate the latter
using linear interpolation.
Control Variables
Since we are looking at the net effects of civic and ethnic nationalism on
indicators of social capital, we control for a series of other factors known to
explain individual variation in generalized trust, associational membership,
and voluntary involvement (Brehm & Rahn, 1997; Hooghe et al., 2009;
Putnam, 2000). At the individual level, age, gender, ethnic origin, marital
status, education level, work status, income level, and religiosity are all
prime candidates in this regard.7 And to ensure that additional differences
among countries with regard to the levels of social capital are explained, we
also control for the effect of national wealth, expressed by the GDP per
capita in 2008 (Eurostat, 2010). The expectation here is that social capital is
more abundant in economically affluent societies (Delhey & Newton, 2005;
Hooghe et al., 2009; Inglehart, 1997). More information about all variables
can be found in Tables A1 to A4 in the appendix.
Method
For estimation, we employ multilevel multiple regression analysis (Gelman
& Hill, 2006; Hox, 2010), a strategy that provides unbiased standard errors
for individual-level parameter estimates in the presence of clustered data
(such as that existing when respondents in cross-national data sets are sam-
pled within countries). What is more, about 21%, 26%, and 10% of the vari-
ability in generalized trust, associational membership, and voluntary
involvement, respectively, occurs at the country level.8 The dichotomous
nature of our outcomes suggests the use of a logistic multilevel estimator. To
enable the interpretation of the effects, all independent variables (at both the
individual and country levels) have been grand-mean centered.

In the analysis section, we proceed as follows. First, we look at straight-

forward bivariate correlations between ethnic and civic nationalism, on one
hand, and the three social capital indicators, on the other, with a further eye
on looking at these patterns in countries with either high or low levels of
immigrant diversity. Subsequently, we analyze the direct relationship between
nationalism and social capital. Third, we consider the extent to which the
diversity–social capital link varies as a function of both societal and individual-
level expressions of ethnic and civic nationalism.
Results
Bivariate Results
In Figure 1, we examine our hypotheses at the trivariate level. To get a rudi-

mentary first cut at whether the apparent relationships differ across contexts,
we classify countries as being either “low diverse” or “high diverse” using a
simple median split on the contextual immigrant diversity measure.9 Since
we treat the nationalism items as continuous and all social capital items are
dichotomous, we calculate straightforward t tests for homogeneous and het-
erogeneous countries separately. The full t test results are listed in Table A5
in the appendix.
On first glance, the patterns are remarkably stable across outcomes. First
of all, civic nationalism is consistently high across homogeneous and mixed
countries, whereas ethnic nationalism prevails more in homogeneous coun-
tries. This can largely be attributed to the fact that ethnic nationalism remains
widespread in the Eastern European countries, which are still rather homo-
geneous compared with Western societies. More germane to our purposes
here, it also appears that civic nationalism appears to increase with social
capital, whereas the opposite appears to be true with ethnic nationalism.
This figure also allows for some initial purchase on the interaction among
ethnic and civic nationalism, social capital, and immigrant diversity. For one
thing, although the differences between those high and low on social capital
with regard to their civic nationalism levels might be small, comparisons
across homogeneous and heterogeneous countries indicate that the differences
are slightly larger in homogeneous countries. Thus, at first glance, in homoge-
neous societies social capital goes better together with adhering to a civic ori-
entation. Moreover, concerning ethnic nationalism, it seems that the differences
between respondents low and high on social capital are, contrary to the expec-
tations, slightly smaller in heterogeneous societies compared to homogeneous
societies. Given the interesting patterns discovered in Figure 1, we analyze
whether these findings hold in the context of multilevel multiple regressions.

Figure 1. Bivariate relationship between nationalism and social capital by share of

foreign-born in the country
The graph represents mean scores on the civic and ethnic nationalism scales
according to the categories on the three dichotomous social capital variables (gen-
eralized trust, associational membership, and voluntary activity). The social capital
responses have, in this example, been harmonized as low and high, which represent,
respectively, distrust versus trust, being member of no associations versus being
member of at least one association, and doing voluntary work for no associations
versus doing voluntary work for at least one association.
Logistic Multilevel Regression Results

Control model. We begin by estimating a baseline model (Table 1) that
includes individual-level covariates shown in previous work to be of rele-
vance in explaining individual variation on these outcomes. But for a few
exceptions, this model confirms previous findings (Gesthuizen et al.,
2009; Hooghe et al., 2009; Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010). Younger genera-
tions tend to score lower than older ones. In terms of gender, with the
exception of generalized trust—where women do not differ significantly
from men—the odds for being member of and volunteer for at least one
organization are lower for the former. Foreigners also exhibit lower levels

Table 1. Logistic Multilevel Multiple Regression Model Predicting Social Capital by

Individual-Level Determinants
Association Voluntary
Generalized trust membership involvement
Param T-Val Param T-Val Param T-Val

Intercept -1.35*** -7.62 -0.75** -3.30 -1.67*** -11.23
Age 0.00*** 3.46 0.00* 3.96 0.00* 2.54
Woman (ref: man) 0.05 1.86 -0.22*** -8.88 -0.23*** -9.17
Of foreign origin (ref: -0.15* -4.34 -0.18*** -5.06 -0.26*** -6.82
native)
Marital (ref: married)
Divorced/separated -0.10* -2.31 -0.08* -2.02 -0.14*** -3.08
Widowed 0.01 0.29 -0.20** -4.35 -0.20*** -3.97
Single 0.09** 2.68 0.04 1.09 -0.08* -2.24
Item nonresponse 0.01 0.05 -0.07 -0.42 -0.04 -0.23
Education (ref: prim)
Lower secondary 0.17* 3.10 0.28*** 5.53 0.26*** 4.23
Higher secondary 0.47*** 9.10 0.55*** 11.34 0.56*** 9.57
Tertiary education 1.00*** 18.88 1.13*** 21.96 1.01*** 16.99
Item nonresponse 0.46*** 3.38 0.21 1.36 0.46** 2.85
Work (ref: employed)
Unemployed -0.45*** -6.91 -0.40*** -6.54 -0.21** -3.01
Student 0.38*** 6.88 0.33*** 5.64 0.23** 3.77
Retired -0.16*** -3.84 -0.23*** -5.58 -0.20*** -4.67
Other -0.17*** -3.76 -0.38*** -8.15 -0.15** -3.10
Item nonresponse -0.30 -1.35 -0.24 -1.19 -0.34 -1.35
Income (ref: low)
Middle income 0.18*** 4.05 0.09* 2.19 0.13* 2.54
High income 0.46*** 8.93 0.39*** 7.85 0.30*** 5.23
Item nonresponse 0.12* 2.52 -0.03 -0.66 0.02 0.28
Church attendance 0.05*** 6.55 0.19*** 26.37 0.23*** 31.97
N 36,734 35,385 36,734
Entries represent the results of three separate logistic multilevel multiple regression models.
More information about the variables is available in Table A2.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
of civic engagement than the native population. Individuals who are

divorced, separated, or widowed rank lower on social capital than married
respondents. As for socioeconomic status, the results confirm the thesis

Table 2. Logistic Multilevel Multiple Regression Model Estimating the Effect of Civic
and Ethnic Nationalism on Indicators of Social Capital

Intercept -1.30*** -7.83 -0.73** -3.30 -1.66*** -11.49
Civic 0.05** 2.65 0.04* 2.14 0.03 1.27
Ethnic -0.24*** -17.44 -0.11*** -7.94 -0.09*** -6.50
N 36,734 35,385 36,734
Entries represent the results of three separate logistic multilevel multiple regression models
with civic and ethnic nationalism added to the control models presented in Table 1.
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
that the educated and the well-off are significantly more likely to be “trust-
ers” and to join at least one association or to volunteer. Last, there is evi-
dence for the role of religiosity: Frequent churchgoers are also more likely
to be a member of or to be involved in other associations and also have
higher levels of generalized trust.
Effects of nationalism. The main interest in this article lies of course in the
relationship between dimensions of nationalism and indicators of social
capital. Table 2 displays the effect parameters (obtained from three separate
logistic multilevel models) of ethnic and civic nationalism once added to the
control model. In support of H1, ethnic nationalism is negatively associated
with all three indicators, though the strength of the effect does vary some-
what across them. In terms of odds ratios, respondents high on ethnic nation-
alism are only half as likely to agree that most people can be trusted.10 For
the structural components of social capital, the suppressing effect of ethnic
nationalism on joining and volunteering in civic associations is somewhat
weaker, but still substantial. The apparent effect civic nationalism on these
indicators is somewhat less clear, though still—broadly speaking—in sup-
port of our expectation that civic nationalism and social capital go hand in
hand (H2). More precisely, civic nationalists are not more likely to volun-
teer; but they are more likely to think that most people can be trusted, and
also to be a member of an association.
And so, as our extension of Miller’s basic argument would suggest, people
endorsing an exclusionary view of nationhood, for example by premising full
membership in the national community on an ascriptive blood tie, appear to
also be less trusting. Moreover, although Miller’s focus is on trust, this effect

also extends to the willingness to participate and volunteer. By contrast,

endorsing an inclusionary view on citizenship, one that privileges good citi-
zenship over blood, appears to foster a more trusting outlook. The question
that remains is the extent to which doing so also makes it less likely that one
will “hunker down” in the face of diversity.
Nationalism and the Relationship

Between Diversity and Social Capital
Country-level nationalism. Putnam’s argument is that in the medium run,
societies premised on civic nationalism are able to overcome the negative con-
sequences of diversity on community cohesion. First, however, in Model 1 of
Table 3, we confirm the recent finding that, at least in Europe, immigrant
diversity at the national level erodes social capital only weakly (Gesthuizen et al.,
2009; Hooghe et al., 2009; Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010). The regression
parameters—indicating a negative but nonsignificant effect parameter on
both generalized trust and associational membership but, of interest, positive
and nonsignificant parameter on volunteering—largely support this. GDP per
capita also behaves as expected, with higher levels of social capital in affluent
societies. Given that the present analyses are based on a different cross-
national survey, and using different measures of immigrant diversity, these
findings are reassuring.
A strict test of the Putnam thesis is not necessarily the main effect of
aggregated ethnic and civic nationalism on individual social capital (though
that is an interesting question in and of itself), but rather whether they mod-
erate the effect of ethno-cultural diversity on social capital (H3 and H4).
We depict estimates from four different models in Table 3. In contrast to
expectations, individuals living in countries in which the general popula-
tion endorses a civic logic toward nationhood are not more likely to express
generalized trust or be civically active (Model 2). In addition, Model 3 of
Table 3 shows that H3 finds little support: Living in a diverse nation pre-
mised on civic nationalism does not appear to encourage social capital at
the individual level.
The main effects of ethnic nationalism on social capital (Model 4 of
Table 3) are, on the other hand, more pronounced.11 In countries more
strongly premised on ethnic nationalism, trust and civic engagement are
reduced. What is more, the contextual effect of ethnic nationalism does not
weaken the strongly significant negative effect of individual ethnic national
identity on trust, demonstrating the importance of approaching nationalism
from various ecological perspectives. H4 finds no support here, in that

Table 3. Interaction Between Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Country-Level

Nationalism in Explaining Social Capital
Model 1
Civic nationalism 0.05* 2.57 0.04* 2.09 0.02 1.20
Ethnic nationalism -0.24*** -17.37 -0.11*** -7.90 -0.09*** -6.42
GDP per capita 0.0*** 4.31 0.02*** 4.70 0.01** 3.37
Immigrant diversity -0.02 -0.12 -0.02 -0.48 0.02 1.08
Model 2
Civic nationalism 0.05** 2.60 0.04* 2.10 0.02 1.20
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.15 0.03*** 4.17 0.01** 2.40
Aggregated civic -1.13 -1.36 -1.09 -1.00 0.02 0.03
Model 3
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.03 0.03*** 4.73 0.01* 2.73
Diversity -0.03 -1.12 -0.03 -1.06 0.02 0.77
Aggregated civic -1.25 -1.37 -1.85 -1.66 -0.36 -0.48
Aggregated civic × diversity -0.05 -0.35 -0.31† -1.88 -0.16 -1.42
Model 4
GDP per capita 0.01† 1.74 0.01 1.68 0.00 0.61
Aggregated ethnic -0.83† -1.91 -1.52** -3.05 -0.91* -2.80
Model 5
GDP per capita 0.01† 1.91 0.01 1.49 0.00 0.46
Aggregated ethnic -0.76† -1.75 -1.60** -3.21 -0.95* -2.88
Aggregated ethnic × Diversity -0.06 -1.18 0.06 1.11 0.03 0.87
Entries are coefficients from 15 separate logistic multilevel models. In Model 1, the country-
level covariates are added to the individual-level model of Table 2. From Model 2 onward, civic
or ethnic nationalism at the country level is as a main effect added to Model 1 and interacted
with the country-level share of immigrants.
†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 4. Cross-Level Interactions Between Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Individual-

Level National Identity in Explaining Social Capital

Model 1
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.31 0.02*** 4.70 0.01** 3.37
Model 2
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.29 0.02*** 4.69 0.01** 3.36
Civic × diversity -0.01** -2.78 0.00 0.81 0.01** 3.30
Model 3
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.40 0.02*** 4.70 0.01** 3.37
Ethnic × diversity -0.01*** -4.07 -0.00 -1.44 0.00 0.17
Model 4
Civic nationalism 0.05* 2.55 0.04† 1.91 0.02 0.80
GDP per capita 0.02*** 4.38 0.02*** 4.69 0.01** 3.36
Civic × diversity -0.01* -2.26 0.00 1.08 0.01*** 3.31
Ethnic × diversity -0.01*** -3.75 -0.00 -1.60 -0.00 -0.23
Entries represent coefficients from 12 separate logistic multilevel multiple regression models.
In Model 1, the country-level covariates are added to the individual-level model of Table 1.
Model 2 adds a cross-level interaction between the share of immigrants with civic nationalism.
Likewise, Model 3 adds a cross-level interaction between diversity and ethnic nationalism to
Model 1. Model 4 is a global model that includes the main effects of diversity, GDP per capita,
and the individual-level controls from Table 1, both types of nationalism, and interactions
between them and diversity levels.
†p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

ethnic nationalism at the national level does not appear to moderate the
relationship between share of immigrants and social capital (Model 5):
Citizens of highly diverse countries characterized by ethnic nationalism do
not exhibit significantly lower social capital levels compared to diverse
country exhibiting less ethnic nationalism.
Individual-level national identity. In addition to the contextual effects
approach of the Putnam thesis, in this section we examine whether his
logic also applies at the individual level, as we suggest that it might (H5
and H6). The dual questions of whether civic nationalism buffers the pre-
dominantly weak negative relationship between diversity and social capi-
tal and whether ethnic nationalism exacerbates it are taken up in Models
2–4 of Table 4. In particular, we are interested in the main effect of immi-
grant diversity, as well as the cross-level interaction between it and civic
(Model 2) or ethnic (Model 3) nationalism, and a global model with both
cross-level interactions (Model 4).
As Models 2 and 4 indicate, the results for civic nationalism (H5) are
mixed. In terms of generalized trust, it seems that a positive main effect of
civic nationalism is combined with a significant negative interaction effect
between civic nationalism and the share of immigrants. This significant
effect does, however, fade when adding the cross-level interaction between
diversity and ethnic nationalism on trust (Model 4). Thus, counter to
expectations, it appears that civic conceptions of national identity do not
cushion one’s sensitivity to immigrant diversity. On the other hand, the
results are rather different for volunteering, where a nonsignificant posi-
tive main effect of civic nationalism is combined with a positive interac-
tion, meaning that civic nationalism has a positive impact on the effect of
diversity on the odds of volunteering in at least one association. This sig-
nificant interaction term holds when controlling for the cross-level diversity–
ethnic nationalism interaction (Model 4). For being a member of any
associations, only significant main effects without significant interactions
are apparent.
Although the story with civic nationalism is somewhat ambiguous, as far
as ethnic nationalism goes it is more fully in line with our theoretical expecta-
tions (H6). On one hand, ethnic nationalism has no moderating impact on the
effect of diversity on the structural aspects of social capital (Models 3 and 4).
On the other, the negative effect of diversity on generalized trust is exacer-
bated by ethnic nationalism: For those respondents who endorse an ethnic
conception of nationhood, diversity exerts a stronger negative impact on gen-
eralized trust than for those who do not.

Conclusion
In this article, we developed and empirically evaluated two different (but
related) ideas about the relationship among national identity, social capital,
and diversity. First, we built on the argument—promoted by David Miller
and others—that national identity generates trust and horizontal solidarity, by
suggesting that this relationship should depend on the kind of national iden-
tity one holds. Civic nationalism should have this effect because it is pre-
mised on inclusivity. Ethnic nationalism, by contrast, should do just the
opposite because its guiding logic is one of exclusion along ethno-cultural
lines. Second, we developed several hypotheses based on Putnam’s (2007)
suggestion—similar in spirit to Miller’s—that civic nationalism is able to
reconcile diversity with social cohesion. Specifically, we expected that high
levels of civic nationalism (at both individual and societal levels of analysis)
should cushion the negative relationship between diversity and social capital
and that ethnic nationalism (again at both levels of analysis) should have the
opposite effect.
We find substantial evidence for the position that national identity gener-
ates trust. That said, only civic nationalism has this effect; lower levels of
trust, however, seem to be the province of ethnic nationalists. This nuance, in
and of itself, is not by any means a challenge of Miller’s position, since he
and other “liberal nationalists” are quite clear that the kinds of trust that are
required for social cohesion can exist only if the nation is subjectively defined
on civic rather than ethnic terms. We do also find some evidence here that our
measures of nationalism at the societal level are related to the outcomes we
examine, above and beyond their effects at the individual level. Although
civic nationalism does not appear to matter in a statistically significant way,
high levels of ethnic nationalism at the societal level are associated with sup-
pressed scores on social capital.
Putnam’s argument about the cushioning effect of civic nationalism on
the relationship between diversity and social capital finds less support. For
one thing, there is no evidence here that aggregated “civic-ness” or “ethnic-
ness” of countries has any moderating effect on this relationship. At the indi-
vidual level, the moderating effect of civic nationalism appears to depend on
the indicator: It heightens the weakly positive effect of diversity on associa-
tional membership as expected, but, counter to expectations, it also appears
to exacerbate the weakly negative effect of diversity on generalized trust. On
the other hand, ethnic nationalism does augment the negative relationship
between diversity and generalized trust, but it does not have any moderating

effect with respect to the other two outcomes. At the very least, there is
clearly a case to be made that the two types of nationalism function differ-
ently. Moreover, these mixed results underline the importance of studying
multiple dimensions of social capital (also see, e.g., Gesthuizen et al., 2009;
Kesler & Bloemraad, 2010) and also theorizing and testing these kinds of
relationships at different ecological levels.
A critical observer might ask why the different dimensions of social capi-
tal we explore seem to give discrepant results. Although these findings might
appear as something of a mixed bag, a deeper understanding of the concep-
tual differences between them indicates that they are not. As Hooghe (2007,
p. 711) argues, several social-psychological studies and experimental designs
have already indicated that “trust probably is most vulnerable for the effects
of increasing diversity, much more so than other components of social capi-
tal.” Thus, on this view it is unsurprising that the strongest relationships we
find tend to emerge on trust.
Of course, every study has limitations, and ours is certainly no exception.
One of these is its reliance on “brute force” social capital measures that do
not explicitly distinguish whether or not it cuts across group lines. Scads of
work on social capital indicates that its positive effects depend on the social
ties created by crosscutting in nature.12 Although we do demonstrate find-
ings in accordance with our hypotheses using the rough gauge of “general-
ized trust,” civic national identity’s great benefit—at least in Miller’s
view—is that it creates a community of mutual obligation between diverse
groups. We present some evidence in favor of this proposition (and the
obverse conclusion about ethnic national identity), but without better mea-
sures of crosscutting trust and civic ties, we are still relying on assumptions
as much as evidence.
A second issue regards the (potentially) conditioning role of the other
two facets of national identity not explored here: namely, the salience one
ascribes to one’s national identity, and the amount of affect one feels with
respect to it. Arguably, nationalism should “matter” more for social capital
to the extent that the nation is an important category in people’s everyday
lives. Building off of H6, for example, ethnic nationalists for whom the
nation is highly salient as an identity might be expected to hunker down
more in the face of diversity than ethnic nationalists for whom it is not. We
encourage future research to pay close attention to the ways in which both
salience and affect of one’s national identity (be it ethnic or civic) condi-
tions its consequences, in terms of not only social capital but also other
relevant outcomes.

A final issue, perennial in the social capital literature, pertains to the

causal arrow question. Namely, it is plausible that generalized trust and
associational memberships might influence people’s normative concep-
tion of what it takes to be a “true national.” Certainly the potential for
reciprocal causality exists, and given that these data do not allow us very
much leverage in addressing the issue, it would obviously be imprudent
to make causal claims with any degree of certainty until further research
is conducted.
To conclude, this study lends weight to the argument that nationalism
and social capital are related in powerful yet nuanced ways and that it can
function as a moderator in the tense relationship between diversity and
social capital. All of these relationships depend, however, on what kind of
national identity is in question. A major part of the national identity debate
swirls around “How proud?” but if this study indicates anything, it is that
this relationship is devoid of meaning without a better understanding
“Proud of what?”
Appendix
Table A1. Descriptive Statistics of Outcome and Hypothesis Variables Before
Centering
Variable N M SDa
Generalized trust 36,734 0.35 0.48
Associational membership 35,385 0.41 0.49
Voluntary involvement 36,734 0.24 0.43
Individual-level civic national identity 36,734 3.51 0.66
Individual-level ethnic national identity 36,734 2.84 0.96
Country-level civic nationalism 27 countries 3.51 0.19
Country-level ethnic nationalism 27 countries 2.82 0.43
Share of immigrants 27 countries 8.97 5.39
Source: UN Population Statistics.
Generalized trust, associational membership, and voluntary involvement are dichotomous,
recoded to 0 (low on social capital) and 1 (high on social capital). Civic and ethnic nationalism has
been assessed on a 1–4 response scale. The share of immigrants represents the percentage of
immigrants in the total population.
a. The standard deviation of the dichotomous social capital variables has been calculated by the
formula sqrt(p*q), which, for generalized trust, equals sqrt(0.35*0.65).

Table A2. Frequencies of the Categorical Individual-Level Variables
Variable Category N %
Generalized trust You can’t be too careful 23,919 65.11

Most people can be trusted 12,815 34.89
Associational No member 20,790 58.75
membership Member of at least one association 14.595 41.25
Voluntary No voluntary involvement 27,908 75.97
involvement Volunteering for at least one association 8,826 24,03
Gender Male 16,342 44.49
Female 20,392 55.51
Ethnic status Native 31,744 86.42
Foreign origin (born abroad or having at 4,990 13.58
least one parent born abroad)
Legal marital status Married 20,295 55.25
Divorced or separated 3,621 9.86
Widowed 4,014 10.93
Never married 8,611 23.44
Item nonresponse 193 0.53
Level of education Primary education 4,749 12.93
Lower secondary education 7,052 19.20
Higher secondary education 16,181 44.05
Tertiary education 8,501 23.14
Work status Employed 19,667 53.54
Unemployed 1,931 5.26
Student 1,895 5.16
Retired 9,409 25.61
Other 3,712 10.11
Income level Low income (response categories 1–3) 6,307 17.17
Middle income (categories 4–6) 13,248 36.06
High income (categories 7–12) 9,983 27.18
Item nonresponse 7,196 19.59

Table A3. Descriptive Statistics of the Individual-Level Continuous Variables Before

Centering
N M SD
Individual-level civic national identity (1–4) 36,734 3.51 0.66
Individual-level ethnic national identity (1–4) 36,734 2.84 0.96
Age (15–108) 36,734 48.80 17.82
Church attendance (0 = never or practically 36,734 2.21 1.98
never, 6 = more than once a week)
Table A4. Overview of Country-Level Information Before Centering
Share of immigrants GDP per

capita Civic Ethnic
Country N Proportion Median split (harmonized) nationalism nationalism
Austria 1,430 14.96 High 124 3.58 2.59
Belgium 1,488 8.86 Low 115 3.58 2.41
Bulgaria 1,376 1.36 Low 44 3.35 3.43
Cyprus 1,407 16.06 High 97 3.51 3.38
Czech 1,590 4.40 Low 81 3.35 2.97
Republic
Denmark 1,349 8.40 Low 123 3.75 2.39
Estonia 1,470 14.16 High 68 3.25 3.00
Finland 1,046 3.84 Low 118 3.77 2.58
France 1,480 10.66 High 107 3.81 2.32
Germany 1,850 13.02 High 116 3.62 2.82
Greece 1,411 9.58 High 93 3.50 3.39
Hungary 1,490 3.54 Low 64 3.32 3.24
Iceland 765 9.82 High 122 3.44 2.38
Latvia 1,398 15.64 High 56 3.26 2.92
Lithuania 1,299 4.32 Low 61 3.06 3.01
Malta 1,406 3.44 Low 78 3.66 3.40
Netherlands 1,491 10.54 High 134 3.50 2.10
Norway 1,064 9.20 Low 189 3.77 2.24
Poland 1,318 2.20 Low 56 3.19 3.39
Portugal 1,454 8.04 Low 78 3.40 3.08
Romania 1,304 0.60 Low 47 3.42 3.31
Slovak 1,330 2.36 Low 72 3.64 2.76
Republic
(continued)

TableA4. (continued)
Share of immigrants GDP per

capita Civic Ethnic
Country N Proportion Median split (harmonized) nationalism nationalism
Slovenia 1,299 8.22 Low 91 3.69 2.92
Spain 1,422 12.74 High 103 3.54 2.56
Sweden 989 13.38 High 122 3.70 2.30
Switzerland 1,138 22.66 High 143 3.63 2.21
United 1,670 10.12 High 115 3.53 2.93
Kingdom
Table A5. t Tests for Civic and Ethnic Nationalism Along Social Capital Indicators
According to Ethnic-Cultural Heterogeneity
Immigrant Social capital Mean on civic Mean on ethnic

diversity category nationalism t test nationalism t test
Low Distrust 3.45 –10.92*** 3.08 28.50***
Trust 3.56 2.69
High Distrust 3.52 –1.52 2.88 28.82***
Trust 3.54 2.45
Low No member 3.42 –16.64*** 3.13 31.34***
Member 3.58 2.71
High No member 3.51 –3.36** 2.88 24.47***
Member 3.55 2.52
Low No volunteer 3.47 –6.95*** 3.02 18.08***
Volunteer 3.55 2.73
High No volunteer 3.52 –3.20** 2.78 14.08***
Volunteer 3.55 2.54
For information regarding the split on immigrant diversity, see Table A4.
**p < .01. ***p < .001.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Robert Putnam and the anonymous reviewers for
their thoughtful and detailed comments throughout. We take full responsibility for all
infelicities and errors of judgment or interpretation.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or pub-
lication of this article.
Notes
1. Throughout, we use the terms nationalism and national identity interchangeably.
The former is employed because it is stylistically less clumsy than the latter.
At no point is our use of nationalism meant to reflect the meaning underlying
its more hard-edged usage, namely, as an indicator of chauvinism, bigotry, and
xenophobia (e.g., De Figueiredo & Elkins, 2003).
2. See, for example, Brubaker (1992), Greenfeld (1992), Huntington (2004),
and Smith (1991).
3. The European Union member states are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech
Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovak Republic,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The three non-EU Organisa-
tion for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states are Ice-
land, Norway, and Switzerland. Luxembourg is excluded because of its “outlier”
status on both GDP per capita and diversity. Denmark is excluded from models
predicting associational membership, as there is no variability in the Danish sam-
ple on that item. Information on the European Values Study methodology is avail-
able at http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/evs/surveys/survey-2008.html.
4. The listed organizations are “social welfare services,” “religious or church organi-
zations,” “education, arts, music or cultural activities,” “trade unions,” “political
parties or groups,” “local community action,” “third world development or human
rights,” “conservation, the environment, ecology, animal rights,” “professional
associations,” “youth work,” sports or recreation,” “women’s groups,” “peace
movement,” “voluntary organizations concerned with health,” “other groups.”
5. The correlation coefficient between the two variables is .11, and regression diag-
nosis at the single level (available on request) has shown that multicollinearity is
absent.
6. The fact that OECD figures for 2008 are available for only a small slice of our
sample countries motivated our use of the UN estimates. For comparison pur-
poses, estimated percentage foreign born correlates at .973 between them, on the
11 countries for which 2008 estimates are available in both data sets.

7. It is not our aim here to explicitly discuss the causal relationships between
these controls and social capital. For work on the role of age, see Putnam
(2000), Norris and Davis (2007), and Inglehart (1997). On gender, see Putnam
(2000). And for a contrary perspective on Europe, see Hall (1999). For a rich
discussion of the role of socioeconomics, see Newton (2001). Finally, for the
role of religion and religiosity, see Putnam and Campbell (2010). The ethnic
conception of nationhood we employ is directly linked to immigration status,
and although we do not employ items directly tapping it, it also tends to be
highly correlated with a religious (particularly Christian) conception of the
nation (e.g., Jones & Smith, 2001; Kunovich, 2009; Wright, Citrin, & Wand,
in press). Thus, we ran additional sensitivity analyses to analyze whether the
results are stable when immigrants are left out of the analyses, or the analyses
are run for nonreligious to moderately religious people (available on request).
Although the effects estimates change slightly, they do not hamper the general
conclusion of this article.
8. Intraclass correlations for logistic multilevel models are calculated differently
than with linear multilevel models. In logistic models, the individual-level vari-
ance equals π2/3 (= 3.29). The intraclass correlation is than calculated by the
formula: [country-level variance / (country-level variance + 3.29)] (Hox, 2010).
9. Since there are an odd number of countries (27), this leaves us with 14 in the
“low” group and 13 in the “high”; the median/threshold country is Norway, for
which the estimated proportion of foreign-born is 9.2%.
10. Odds ratios were calculated by the formula exp(b*X). On a 1 to 4 scale (range of
3), this means that for the most ethnic nationalist respondents, the odds ratio for
being trusting is exp(–0.24*3) or 0.48 compared to the least.
11. It needs to be remembered that civic and ethnic nationalism are, at the country
level, highly correlated (–.54). It seems, however, that ethnic nationalism fits the
data better than civic nationalism.
12. See, for example, Bowler, Donovan, and Hanneman (2003), Levi (1996), Put-
nam (2000), Stolle and Rochon (1998), and Theiss-Morse and Hibbing (2005).
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Bios
Tim Reeskens is an assistant professor of Political Science at the University of
Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research
Foundation - Flanders at the Centre for Sociological Research at KU Leuven
(Belgium). He obtained his PhD in 2009 from KU Leuven (Belgium). His research
mainly deals with the cross-national analysis of political and social attitudes, with a
particular interest in social capital and generalized trust, nationalism, and support for
the welfare state. His research has appeared in Journal of European Social Policy,
International Migration Review, Nations and Nationalism, Psychological Science,
and Work, Employment and Society.
Matthew Wright is an Assistant Professor in the Government Department at

American University, Washington DC. He received his PhD in political science from
the University of California, Berkeley, in 2010. His field of expertise is the study of
political behavior, with particular attention to immigration, multiculturalism, and the
politics of ethnic diversity. His specific research interests include the individual and
societal bases of political identities, as well as their implications in terms of attitudes
and behaviors. His research has appeared in Political Research Quarterly,
Psychological Science, American Politics Research, Political Psychology, and
Perspectives on Politics.

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Nationalism and the Cohesive Society A Multilevel

Article in Comparative Political Studies · February 2013

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Nationalism and the Cohesive Society: A Multilevel Analysis of the

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Comparative Political Studies

Nationalism and the XX(X) 1­–29

Interplay Among Diversity,

Tim Reeskens1,2 and Matthew Wright3

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Scholarship warning of the tense relationship between ethnic diversity and

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hypotheses about how different dimensions of nationalism—namely the

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Hypothesis 1 (H1): Respondents endorsing civic nationalism will

A related perspective on the relationship between national identity and social

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likely to embrace—and less likely to be threatened by—an influx of ethno-cul-

Hypothesis 3 (H3): Residents of societies where civic nationalism is

These hypotheses suggest that relationship between contextual diversity

Hypothesis 5 (H5): Individual-level civic nationalism should decrease the

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Hypothesis 6 (H6): Individual-level ethnic nationalism should exacer-

Data and Method

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laws,” whereas ethnic nationalism is tapped by the level of importance they

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In the analysis section, we proceed as follows. First, we look at straight-

In Figure 1, we examine our hypotheses at the trivariate level. To get a rudi-

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Figure 1. Bivariate relationship between nationalism and social capital by share of

Logistic Multilevel Regression Results

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Table 1. Logistic Multilevel Multiple Regression Model Predicting Social Capital by

Param T-Val Param T-Val Param T-Val

of civic engagement than the native population. Individuals who are

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Param T-Val Param T-Val Param T-Val

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also extends to the willingness to participate and volunteer. By contrast,

Nationalism and the Relationship

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Table 3. Interaction Between Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Country-Level

Param T-Val Param T-Val Param T-Val

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Table 4. Cross-Level Interactions Between Ethno-Cultural Diversity and Individual-

Param T-Val Param T-Val Param T-Val

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A final issue, perennial in the social capital literature, pertains to the

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Table A2. Frequencies of the Categorical Individual-Level Variables

Generalized trust You can’t be too careful 23,919 65.11

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Table A3. Descriptive Statistics of the Individual-Level Continuous Variables Before

Nationalism and the XX(X) 1–29