Context matters for the relationship between national identity and perceived democratic quality: National pride as a blind spot

Hadarics, Márton (2026) Context matters for the relationship between national identity and perceived democratic quality: National pride as a blind spot. BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY, 65 (3). No.-e70084. ISSN 0144-6665

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Abstract

A growing body of evidence shows that national identity is positively related to attitudes toward societal and political systems. Yet much less is known about contextual factors that may modify this relationship. Distinguishing two facets of national identity—attachment and pride—and focusing on perceived democratic quality as a core system attitude, we test whether the links between these identity dimensions and system attitudes vary with the actual quality of democracy. Using data from 92 countries in the combined World Values Survey/European Values Study ( N = 156,658), augmented with country‐level indicators, multilevel structural equation models show that the association between national pride and perceived democratic quality is stronger in less democratic countries, whereas the effect of attachment is context‐invariant. These findings suggest that national pride is associated with a positively biased perception of democratic quality that diverges from reality in illiberal or weak democracies, thereby complicating the predominantly positive framing of national pride in the social psychological literature on national identity.

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