Abstract
This chapter examines pride in the Basic Law. The chapter argues that much writing on attitudes towards democracy claims that citizens have become sceptical, raising the question of how, democracies survive? The answers offered suggest that it is sustained, in part, by affection for one’s country, but this is problematic in the German context, since the political history of Germany thoroughly discredited nationalism and attempts to revive it were decisively rejected. The concept of constitutional patriotism, however, often appears as a substitute, but there has been surprisingly little attempt to subject it to empirical scrutiny. This chapter tests theoretical approaches about its origins using logistic regression analyses and the results confirm that constitutional pride is shaped by postmaterialism, along with the trusting instincts of civil society—factors which provide it with a degree of longevity in the west, but are comparatively underdeveloped in the former East.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Included in the development of the concept are Karl Jaspers, Dolf Sternberger, Jürgen Habermas and, more recently, Jan-Werner Müller.
- 2.
See, for example, Bettina Westle, Kollektive Identität im vereinten Deutschland: Nation und Demokratie in der Wahrnehmung der Deutschen (Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1999).
- 3.
There was pressure to renew German patriotism prior to unification in 1990. See, for example, Charles S. Maier, Dissolution: The Crisis of Communism and the End of East Germany (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), p. 194. This, however, was part of the objection to German unification from a number of left-wing intellectuals, notably Günter Grass—see, for example, Günter Grass, Two States—One Nation? The Case Against German Reunification (London: Secker and Warburg, 1990).
- 4.
See, for example, John Erik Fossum, ‘Deep Diversity versus Constitutional Patriotism: Taylor, Habermas and the Canadian Constitutional Crisis’. Ethnicities, 1/2 (2001), pp. 179–206.
- 5.
Mattias Kumm, ‘Why Europeans will not embrace constitutional patriotism’. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6/1 (2008), pp. 117–136.
- 6.
Allensbacher data, for example, used a simple question asking respondents if they favoured retaining or replacing the Basic Law. See: Renate Kocher, Allensbacher Jahrbuch der Demoskopie 2003–2009: Die Berliner Republik (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), p. 21.
- 7.
Jan-Werner Müller, Constitutional Patriotism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 1.
- 8.
Jan-Werner Müller, ‘Seven Ways to Misunderstand Constitutional Patriotism’, Notizie di Politeia, 25/96 (2009), pp. 20–24.
- 9.
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2016).
- 10.
Jan-Werner Müller and Kim Lane-Scheppele, ‘Constitutional Patriotism: An Introduction’. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6/1 (2008), pp. 67–71.
- 11.
George Kateb, ‘Is Patriotism a Mistake’ Social Research, 67/4 (2000), pp. 901–923.
- 12.
Justine Lacroix, ‘For a European Constitutional Patriotism’. Political Studies, 50 (2002) 944–958.
- 13.
Jan-Werner Müller, ‘A European Constitutional Patriotism? The Case Restated’. European Law Journal, 14/5 (2008), pp. 542–557. See, especially, p. 546.
- 14.
Jürgen Habermas, A Berlin Republic: Writings on Germany (London: Polity Press, 1996), pp. 170–171.
- 15.
Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (London: Polity Press, 1996), pp. 30–31.
- 16.
Jürgen Habermas, Does Europe Need a Constitution? In Jürgen Habermas, Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff (eds.) The Inclusion of the Other: Studies in Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press), pp. 155–161.
- 17.
Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (London: Polity Press, 1996), p. 500.
- 18.
David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
- 19.
Theodore Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswick, Daniel J. Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford The Authoritarian Personality (New York, NY: Harper, 1950).
- 20.
Robert T. Schatz, Ervin Staub and Howard Lavine ‘On Varieties of National Attachment: Blind Versus Constructive Patriotism’. Political Psychology, 20/1, pp. 151–173.
- 21.
Jan-Werner Muller, ‘A European Constitutional Patriotism? The Case Restated’. European Law Journal, 14/5 (2008), pp. 542–557.
- 22.
Patchen Markell, ‘Making Affect Safe for Democracy? On ‘Constitutional Patriotism’’. Political Theory, 28/1(2000), pp. 38–63.
- 23.
David Abraham, ‘Constitutional Patriotism, Citizenship, and Belonging’. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6/1 (2008), pp. 137–152.
- 24.
Mary Fulbrook, German Identity after the Holocaust (London: Polity, 1999), p. 179.
- 25.
Popular discussions about the ban of the National Democratic Party (NPD), along with the judgement by the constitutional court in January 2017, showed that this remains an emotive issue. Although the court accepted that the party opposed the values of the constitution and was working to overthrow the Federal Republic, it concluded that there was no realistic prospect of this and thus rejected the petition, generating a significant political backlash.
- 26.
Jan-Werner Muller ‘On the Origins of Constitutional Patriotism’. Contemporary Political Theory, 5/3 (2006), pp. 278–296.
- 27.
This was not just a theoretical concern: Almond and Verba discovered strong levels of national pride in their study in 1959, p. 64.
- 28.
Gebhard Schweigler, Nationalbewußtsein in der BRD und der DDR. (Düsseldorf: Verlagsgruppe Bertelsmann, 1974).
- 29.
In part, this was connected to the loss of territory during the war and meant that German citizenship covered those—and their descendants—who had been within the boundaries of the former Reich, or who had been deprived of their citizenship. Irrespective of whether they had been to Germany or could speak the language, therefore, individuals had the automatic right to resettle in Germany by virtue of the jus sanguinis principles of citizenship, whilst those descending from immigrants—often second or third generation immigrants—found it increasingly difficult to meet the exacting requirements of naturalisation.
- 30.
As Brubaker has argued: ‘[a]s far as citizenship law is concerned the division of Germany never happened…Common citizenship paved the way for common statehood’. Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (London: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 82.
- 31.
Article 116, for example, restores citizenship to expellees or their descendants on ‘ethnic’ grounds. Governments, meanwhile, espoused commitments to liberalising naturalisation processes, but did so belatedly whilst requiring candidates to relinquish their original citizenship.
- 32.
David P. Conradt, ‘Changing German Political Culture’ in Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture Revisited (London: Sage, 1989), p. 222.
- 33.
David P. Conradt, The German Polity: Ninth Edition (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company), pp. 76–77.
- 34.
David Easton, A Systems Analysis of Political Life (John Wiley and Sons, 1965), p. 272.
- 35.
Ibid., p. 273.
- 36.
See, for example, Kendall L. Baker, Russell J. Dalton and Kai Hildebrandt, Germany Transformed: Political Culture and the New Politics (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 93.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Campbell, R. (2019). Affective Support and Constitutional Patriotism. In: Popular Support for Democracy in Unified Germany. New Perspectives in German Political Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03792-5_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03792-5_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03791-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03792-5
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)