Establishing and Explaining the Link Between Religiosity and National Pride Among European Mass Publics

Though religion conditioned state-formation of European nations, the literature on nationalism assumed a broadly secular tone and conceived of the religion between religious and national identities as one of tension and conflict: modernization has pushed the former to the private realm, and the latter has taken a prominent place. Perhaps as a result, the growing literature on national identity in public opinion has largely elided the complex relationship between religiosity and patriotism. We address this gap by analyzing the 2008 wave of the European Social Survey. We find, first and foremost, that religiosity and patriotism go hand-in-hand. This association, we argue, reflects elements of group identities, and socialization, and to a lesser extent moral conservatism and postmaterial orientations. Also, the relationship appears conditioned by the nature of society: it is strengthened where societal religiosity is high, and attenuated in more “democratized” and modernized states. We conclude our study with some critical remarks on the present and previous research on national identity.