SOCIAL CHANGE AS A SOURCE OF MACROSOCIAL STRESS: DOES IT ENHANCE NATIONALISTIC ATTITUDES?

ABSTRACT

The paper reports a representative study of inhabitants (age > 13) of the common border regions of Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Based on Stephan and Stephan's integrated threat theory three hypotheses are tested, namely that (1) the experience of threat due to the EU enlargement leads to a higher prevalence of nationalist attitudes, that (2) positive intercultural attitudes lower the impact of enlargement-related threat on nationalism, and that (3) the impact of a threat experience on nationalism will be most pronounced in a border region where status differences and repercussions of historic conflicts are most salient, namely the region where the Czech Republic borders on West Germany (Bavaria). Findings support the first hypothesis. Hypothesis 2 finds little support, while Hypothesis 3 is largely supported. In the Western Czech/Bavarian border region the most imminent conflict potential exists; only there the hypothesis of a mediation effect of positive interpersonal attitudes finds partial support.

Keywords:

• nationalist attitudes
• threat
• intercultural attitudes
• border regions
• macrosocial stress

Notes

The study reported here is part of the project ‘Does the enlargement of the European Union to Eastern Europe mobilize right-wing extremism? Fears of disintegration and hopes: A causal analysis based on a cross-cultural survey study’, principal investigators Susanne Rippl (Technische Universität Chemnitz) and Klaus Boehnke (International University Bremen). The project was part of the research network ‘Disintegration processes–Strengthening the integration potentials of modern society’, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and directed by Wilhelm Heitmeyer (Universität Bielefeld). The paper is in large parts based on a poster ‘The Perception of EU-Enlargement in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic’ presented for the team by the second author at the 27th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International Society for Political Psychology, Lund, Sweden, July 2004, and a paper ‘Macrosocial stress as a source of increased rejection of ‘the other?’, delivered by the first author at the 17th International Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Xian, China, August 2004.

²The figures given are rough estimates taken from Regional GDP statistics for EU regions (so-called NUTS) for 2002, published on the website http://epp.eurostat.cec.eu.int/pls/portal/docs/PAGE/PGP_PRD_CAT_ PREREL/PGE_AT_PREREL_YEAR_2005/PGE_CAT_PREREL_YEAR_2005_MONTH_01/2-25012005-EN-AP.PDF, last accessed, January 9, 2005.

³To also conduct face-to-face interviews in Germany in order to homogenize the data collection strategy was impossible for financial reason. The grant obtained from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research did not cover the higher expenses for that strategy.

⁴A closer look at numbers of respondents in the three border areas reveals that the size of the sample included from BR III is a bit too small when one wants to have representative proportions of an all-German or all-Czech sample.

⁵The correlation between contact quality and threat ranges from -.12 to -40 in the six subsamples.