National nostalgia and socio-political dynamics

Anouk Smeekes, PhD (Assistant Professor, Utrecht University, the Netherlands; European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations)

Abstract. In various Western European countries, both right and left wing politicians have claimed that, as a consequence of the growing cultural and religious diversification of these societies, native majority members no longer feel at home in their country and neighborhoods and increasingly long for the good old days of when it was “just us”. The research that I will present during this talk examines the consequences of this collective nostalgia for the nation (i.e., national nostalgia) for current group dynamics and political party support. Specifically, combining insights from theoretical and qualitative work on collective nostalgia with social psychological research, I propose that national nostalgia is likely to have positive consequences for the national in-group but negative consequences for the evaluation of immigrant out-groups and results in more support for populist radical-right parties. The theoretical reason is that national nostalgia is likely to foster processes of social categorization between the old “us” that share a past and a new “them” who are not part of this past. This means that while national nostalgia is likely to provide a sense of attachment to fellow national in-group members, it may mark group boundaries and hamper positive intergroup relations. Social psychological research on nostalgia has mainly considered this emotion at the individual rather than the group level, leaving open the question how collective nostalgia affects group dynamics. My research aims to provide more insights into how and why national nostalgia affects socio-political dynamics. In the current talk I will present experimental and survey studies on this topic.

The seminar will take place at the center, as well as in this virtual seminar room.