The Power of Liberal Nationalism

Diversity is no threat to democracy. What puts democracy at risk are the demagogues who rob minorities of their rights and then insist that granting them extraordinary powers is essential to protecting the ethnic majority from the supposed depredations of minorities and immigrants. Just about everywhere, this kind of demagogue has managed to have the best of it. Furthermore, they have insisted on their superiority as patriots and protectors of the nation. The liberal defenders of democracy have frequently been oblivious to the power of nationalism, considering it a deplorable atavism. If they are to defend democracy effectively in multiethnic societies, liberals will need to resist the temptation to equate nationalism with nativism and ethnonationalism, seize the flag, and arm themselves with emotionally resonant nationaldemocratic narratives that appeal more widely than the biased tales spun by the illiberal foes of free government.

Diversity is no threat to democracy. Free government has flourished from Ghana to the United States, from Estonia to Brazil, in multiethnic polities, while backsliding toward authoritarian rule has occurred both in mono-ethnic and plural societies. What does pose a threat to democracy is the demagogues, who strip minorities of their rights and insist that their being invested with extraordinary powers is key to protecting the ethnic majority from the alleged predation of minorities and immigrants.

It may be apparent that the force of national attachment is weakening under the tides of modernization. But, as Gina Gustavsson and David Miller have written, while "globalization and international migration have connected people across national boundaries" as never before, the share of Westerners professing to feel "very close" or "close" to their countries actually grew between the mid-1990s and the mid-2010s.1 The most recent wave of the World Values Survey reveals the trend to be global: 91 percent of Germans, 94 percent of Poles, 91 percent of Filipinos, 85 percent of Japanese, and 83 percent of Turks claimed to feel "very close" or "close" to their countries.2

Some liberals today view nationalism as a pernicious force, best left to democracy's adversaries. But in a study of 24 European countries Julian Erhardt and colleagues found that identification with one's country was linked to higher support for democracy and lower support for authoritarian alternatives.3 In a study of the Netherlands and the United States, Gina Gustavsson and Ludvig Stendahl found that "scoring high on national pride is remarkably strongly and robustly related to higher levels of political trust."4 National identification may also strengthen intercommunal trust in ethnically plural societies. In a field experiment in Malawi, Amanda Lea Robinson reports that "exposure to national symbols-including the national flag, national currency, and national anthem-reduce[d] the degree to which coethnicity dictates interpersonal trust, ultimately breaking the link between ethnic diversity and low levels of interpersonal trust."5 In an experiment, Volha Charnysh, Christopher Lucas, and Prerna Singh made Indian Hindus think about their national identity and, subsequently, more generous toward Indian Muslims.6

Still, in a 2020 essay in these pages on the causes of democracy's doldrums in Eastern Europe, Jarosław Kuisz and Karolina Wigura noted, "Unfortunately, for many liberals the mere word nation provokes suspicion." According to the authors, that aversion has become a political liability, since "it seems that patriotism is a cultural element that is in demand in today's societies." Absent parties that tie liberalism to the national flag, "the empty ideological space [has been] occupied largely by populists who packed it with a reactive dislike of the West, supplemented by a xenophobia-tinged promise of well-being for the national community."7

Liberal suspicion of nationalism may arise in part from a failure to distinguish between ethnonationalism and what may be called whole-country nationalism, which includes all members of the polity and may be essential to popularizing liberal aims. Liberals may fear that even whole-country nationalism will offend minority groups that are vital members of their electoral coalitions. A spate of data, however, suggests that such concerns are unfounded. In the 2020 American National Election Studies survey, four-fifths of African Americans said their ethnic identity was "extremely" or "very important" to them, compared with just a fifth of whites. But 72 percent of African Americans — versus 64 percent of whites — also said that their American identity was "extremely" or "very important" to them. Similarly, one Pew survey from 2021 recorded that 95 percent of Indian Muslims believed they were "very proud" to be Indian.8