Popular Conceptions of Nationhood in Old and New European

therefore, that ethno-nationalism should have acquired the saliency that it did; there was
no other identity in the public sphere that could have played this role (ibid. p. 279).

Lastly, Zimmer (2003) made an important contribution to the ethnic-civic debate.
He criticizes the ethnic-civic dichotomy for grouping inclusive/exclusive notions
and identity markers in one category (either ethnic or civic). This, he argues, is
misleading since it presupposes that those who favour a deterministic
understanding of nationhood by definition use ethno-cultural markers and those
who endorse an inclusive vision political markers. In reality, however, the former
could well rely on political markers and the latter on cultural issues, depending on
the issues and political opportunity structure of the day. He therefore proposes to
disengage identity markers - „symbolic resources’ in his terminology - from the
ethnic-civic distinction so that the remaining dichotomy reflects exclusively
inclusive/voluntarist vs. ascriptive/organic notions of nationhood - „boundary
mechanisms’ in Zimmer’s terms (ibid. p. 178). He further identified four symbolic
resources (political values/institutions, culture, history and geography) that political
entrepreneurs use to back their inclusive or deterministic visions of the nation with.

The ISSP survey: No differences between East and West in understandings of
nationhood

Until the end of the 1990s the ethnic-civic debate had been very much a theoretical
exercise dominated by historians and political scientists. If any empirical data were
at all studied these usually involved statements by politicians, discussions in the
media or policy documents. Little attention was paid to the attitudes and opinions

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