European by action: How voting reshapes nested identities

Abstract

Although research has questioned the stability of identities, we know little about identity change. I examine a political event as a driver of identity change, namely the Brexit vote. I contend that the act of voting, choosing between two options, boosts the European and British identity underlying the vote choice. I test whether the increased identification with Europe or Britain comes with a reduction in the other identity. Using British Election Study panel data in a two-way fixed-effects design, I show that voting to remain increases identification with Europe but voting to leave does not increase British identification for Leavers. However, voting has no impact on how Remainers identify with Britain or Leavers identify with Europe. The results contribute to the growing literature on the link between politics and identities.

Terrorist violence and the fuzzy frontier: national and supranational identities in Britain

“…Table 1 provides summary statistics of the key variables used in our analysis. 9 As can be seen in this table, the average strength score for both Britishness and Nationness is very high (5.6 on the 1-7 scale), in line with BritonsŠ long-lasting tradition of holding multiple salient national identities (Sczepanski, 2023). However, when we split the sample by nation, we can observe some notable differences in how the two identities are perceived.…”

“…As such, terrorism could bolster support for ethnic and regional identities. Considering that individuals in Britain hold multiple national identities, which are often seen as complementary and compatible (Denham and Devine, 2017;Sczepanski, 2023), this could result in a simultaneous reinforcement of all of them.…”

“…A second explanation has to do with how complementary the two identities are perceived to be. Individuals who see no conĆict between two identities may exhibit similar identity changes during political events; whereas those who view them as conĆicting or incompatible may choose one alternative over the other (see Sczepanski, 2023). To explore this argument, we split the sample of individuals into three groups based on the median values of their identities over the sample period: those with Śequally strongŠ identities (when the difference between median Britishness and median nationness is from -0.5 to +0.5), those with Śstronger BritishnessŠ (when the difference is above +0.5), and those 17 93.4% and 92.9% of our observations correspond to UK-born and white-British individuals, respectively.…”

“…Notably, those who exhibit the strongest English identity often also ex-press a profound connection to their British identity, with some viewing these identities as distinct yet complementary, while others treating them as interchangeable (Denham and Devine, 2017). Concurrently, a substantial number of British citizens, particularly those residing in Scotland, tend to perceive a certain tension between the British identity and their regional identity, sometimes viewing them as incompatible (Sczepanski, 2023). Given that the supranational identity competes with the constituent national identities, the next section will develop countervailing expectations about which one of these is likely to grow stronger in the aftermath of terrorism.…”

Who are the Cosmopolitans? How Perceived Social Sorting and Social Identities Relate to European and National Identities

“…Deutsch (1957) argued that transnational contacts and interactions contribute to the adoption of European identities, and subsequent research has shown that experiences such as participating in Erasmus programs and residing in diverse neighborhoods foster the growth of European identity (Kuhn, 2011; Schraff & Sczepanski, 2022; Stoeckel, 2016, but see Kuhn, 2012). Moreover, symbols representing the European Union and pro-European actions have been demonstrated to be related to the adoption of a European identity (Nicoli et al, 2020; Sczepanski, 2023a). The notable success of socialization approaches is unsurprising, as the fundamental functions of identities are social in nature, creating a sense of belonging.…”