National identity politics and cultural recognition: the party system as context of choice

ABSTRACT

This paper looks into the determinants of cultural recognition in ethnically diverse democracies that are divided on national identity, arguing that political parties’ cultural ideologies are not entirely predetermined by their national identity position. It posits that, rather than just a tool for national identity building, cultural recognition in such societies is also a way for parties to show commitment to their ethnic electorate. In this sense, the ethnic segmentation of the party system provides political elites with a context of choice from which to formulate their stance on cultural recognition. The paper argues that, far from being divisive, national identity politics can have a strong influence in establishing consensus on national culture. Moreover, it suggests that looking at national identity and recognition politics from the perspective of electoral incentives can help us understand why culture regimes can appear to be unfair to some groups, yet remain legitimate politically.

KEYWORDS:

• Catalunya
• cultural recognition
• identity politics
• party politics
• Québec
• Taiwan

Acknowledgements

This paper is based on doctoral and postdoctoral work done at the University of Hong Kong (Department of Politics and Public Administration), Academia Sinica (Institute of Sociology), and the University of Ottawa (Chair of Taiwan Studies and School of Political Studies). I would like to thank these academic units for their research and financial support.

This paper also draws on conference papers previously presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Sociological Association, 5 June 2013, and the International Political Science Association World Congress, 24 July 2014. Here, I would like to thank Karen Stanbridge, Amy Liu and conference attendees, André Lecours, Selma K. Sonntag, as well as three anonymous referees for their comments on earlier drafts. Figures in this paper were compiled on the basis of datasets from the 1997 Canadian Election Survey, the 2003 Taiwan Social Change Survey on National Identity, and La Identidad Nacional en España 2006 by the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. Data from the 1997 Canadian Election Survey were provided by the Institute for Social Research, York University, with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), grant number 412-96-0007 (Investigators: André Blais (Université de Montréal), Elisabeth Gidengil (McGill University), Richard Nadeau (Université de Montréal) and Neil Nevitte (University of Toronto)). The Taiwan Social Change Survey was conducted by the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, and sponsored by the National Science Council, Republic of China. None of the people, academic units or survey centres mentioned above are responsible for the analyses or interpretations presented in this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Optimal winning coalitions are customarily defined as simple majorities, i.e. 50 + 1, or as rendered by Chandra and Boulet (2012), threshold k, .5 < k < 1. However, notwithstanding parties’ incentives to move towards the median voter, national identity cleavages are not necessarily symmetrical in that they can comprise a wide range of categories, as in Taiwan or Catalunya. With this in mind, I define an optimal winning coalition as a relative majority (i.e. a plurality), the minimum threshold (k) of which is determined by the number of possible cleavage categories (CC) in a given political system, so that k =. In Taiwan, for instance, there have generally been three categories (independence, status quo, and unification), although status quo and unification parties have tended to ally as part of the same coalition in the legislature.

2. This is precisely what PQ leader and premier Jacques Parizeau implied in his controversial referendum night speech, when attributing the loss of the ‘Yes’ camp to ‘money and ethnic votes’: ‘Let’s stop talking about the Francophones of Québec, alright? Let’s talk about us; with 60%, we voted for it. […] So this means that next time, instead of being 60 or 61% to vote Yes, we will be 63 or 64%, and that will suffice.’ While the survey sample inflates the proportion of French speakers slightly vis-à-vis Allophones, Table 1 suggests that Parizeau’s estimates were rather accurate, in that there was a clear pattern of ethnic alignment that can partially explain the campaign’s outcome.

3. Pro-unification parties are for the most part splinter parties from the KMT, with which they tend to form coalitional governments as part of the so-called Blue camp. Despite the ideology of the Green camp’s independence coalition (headed by the DPP) being favoured by public opinion, the KMT has consistently attracted a larger share of voters by straddling the status quo and unification categories, and by emphasizing the economic benefits of maintaining positive relations with China. This, together with pressure from China and the United States, has limited the success of pro-Taiwan parties in promoting formal statehood for Taiwan.