Popular Conceptions of Nationhood in Old and New European

three-dimensional model is better suited to represent popular notions of nationhood
than a crude ethnic-civic dichotomy or a continuum with ideal types as poles. In
addition, and in contrast to previous studies, this study will show some support for
the regional breakdown of the ethnic-civic framework. However, doubt is cast on
the stability of this identity pattern. Finally, we will contend that it is the intensity
of national affiliations rather than their qualitative nature (ethnic-civic) that appears
to be related to xenofobia and feelings of closeness to ethnic others.

First, a brief outline will be given of the ethnic-civic framework and of the
criticism it evoked. The second section discusses the results of the studies on
national identity that used the ISSP survey. Analyses of the Eurobarometer data are
presented in section four. The article concludes by discussing the patterns found
and sketching some implications for existing theories on national identity.

The ethnic-civic dichotomy and its fate in the 1990s and after

Kohn (1944; 1962; 1996) believed that the idea of the nation first arose in countries
with a strong bourgeoisie and/or traditions of liberalism and decentralized rule
(Great Britain, France, United States, Switzerland and The Netherlands). This new
idea - labelled civic nationalism by Kohn - inspired millions by propagating the
nation as a political community of citizens with equal rights and duties. Man was to
be liberated from the social bonds - church, class, serfdom, family - that had kept
him ignorant for centuries. Central to the new ideology was the notion that every
person, irrespective of religious, ethnic or class background, could freely join the
nation as long as (s)he swore allegiance to a set of political principles and
institutions representing the nation’s values and objectives. A nationalism of a

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