National Identity and Citizenship in a Globalizing World

In this application, it is proposed to carry out the International Social Surveys 2003 (National Identity II) and 2004 (Citizenship) in Austria; a representative population survey of 1000 persons shall be interviewed with a standardized questionnaire. The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) is one of the largest comparative research projects in the social sciences; it comprises now 40 countries around the world. After their collection, the Austrian data will be included to the international data file (comprising in all about 40.000 persons) which will be freely available to the international scientific community. Thus, the Austrian research group will be able to analyse the results for Austria in direct comparison with many other countries. The author of this proposal has been among the founders of ISSP; he suggested to include the topic of "National Identity" into the ISSP-surveys and was the chair of the drafting group of "National Identity I" (1995). On the bases of these data, he published a monograph on national identity in Austria (Haller et al. 1996). In this Austrian survey, it is proposed to combine the collection of the data on "National Identity" with the ISSP-module 2004 on "Citizenship" since these two modules are closely related to each other. Therefore, also relationships between the two topics of "National Identity" and "Citizenship" can be investigated, as well as their relation to sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents and macro-characteristics of the countries included. Seven specific areas shall be included in the surveys and investigated through multivariate data analysis: (1) the relevance of national identity in the present era of globalisation; (2) the meaning and bases of national identity; (3) the level of national pride and its determinants; (4) the relation between national identity and other territorial-political identities, particularly European identity; (5) perceptions and attitudes concerning people`s rights and duties and their influence in democracies; (6) political interest, trust and participation and their relation to national identity and patriotism; (7) the nation state, citizenship and attitudes and prejudices toward immigrants and minorities. The participation of Austria in this large and highly promising international project is important for two reasons: (1) It enables Austrian sociology to learn from and contribute to high-quality international social research; (2) The last decade was a period in which significant political changes related to national identity took place within and around Austria; by comparing the new data with those of the first survey in 1995, we can investigate the effects of these changes on national identity. Outcomes of the project will be: (1) Scientific presentations and publications; (2) Critical informations and knowledge for political elites, teachers and the general public about the importance of national identity, citizenship and political participation; (3) Indroduction of university students into international comparative research by making available the data for seminars, diploma and doctoral theses.