ANCESTRY AND NATIONAL IDENTIFICATION IN ROMANIA

Authors

  • HORATIU RUSU Professor of Sociology at Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu & ICCV, Romanian Academy of Sciences

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47743/asas-2021-2-652

Keywords:

national identification, primordial attachments, ancestry, European Social Survey, Romania

Abstract

This paper examines the relation between the ethnic origin and the strength  of national identification, as emotional attachment  to Romania. Despite there are many nationalism studies, not enough are exploring empirical data while questioning ethno-nationalist conceptions in and about Romania. Considering the primordialist perspectives, the roots of the  nation  are  of ethnic  origin,  therefore  a  stronger  relation  should  be  expected between  those  of Romanian  ethnic  background  and  their  national  identifications,  as compared to national  identifications  of people that  ascribe a different or mixed ethnic origin. By running  a multivariate analysis on the Romanian ESS9 wave, the article finds clues  of equal  degrees  of identification  with  Romania among  all these  categories  of people. Results do not  deny connections  between  ancestry  and national  identification. The  findings  rather   point  out  that  in  terms  of  emotional  attachment,   Romanians, Hungarians,  Roma, and  other  citizens  declaring  a  different  common  ancestry  for  all ancestors or a mixed ancestry, have similar levels of identification with the country.

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Additional Files

Published

29-12-2021