Reeskens & Wright: National or Transnational Identity?

Analyzing the 2008 wave of the European Values Study, we arrive at the conclusion that immigrants are fairly strong attached to their host society, and that immigrants affect towards the host country is acculturated by natives’ levels of national identity...
We also find little evidence here that liberal integration policies (the MIPEX index scores with and without education) have much impact on our outcomes for any of the three groups. More precisely, national pride is not higher in societies that meet the inclusive European standards of immigrant incorporation. For territorial identification, it does appear that natives, as well as first generation immigrants (but not second generation immigrants), are more inclined to identify with the supranational level in countries with inclusive incorporation regimes than in countries with restrictive policies. However, in the absence of a consistent second generation effect (and in the presence of a native effect), it is difficult to uphold that inclusive immigrant integration policies make immigrants more loosely connected to their host country.
In sum, the patterns most evident in our analysis of national-level determinants are, first of all a consistent acculturation effect: immigrants to a large extent adopt the national pride of their role models. In addition, the number of similar patterns between natives and immigrants are also quite substantial, and indicate that immigrants are affected similarly by common structures (e.g. ethnic fractionalization, national wealth, and welfare redistribution) as natives. Yet, interestingly, the absence of consistent policy effects on national identity among immigrants is a finding that needs further reflection, too, as well as the finding that especially first generation immigrants show at the same time more proud in affluent and generous welfare states, while they are also identify more with the supranational level in these wealthy redistributive societies...Read more