The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts FIGHTING AND DYING FOR ONE’S COUNTRY: NATIONALISM, INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT, AND GLOBALIZATION A Dissertation in Political Science by Gretchen Ursula Schrock-Jacobson © 2010 Gretchen Ursula Schrock-Jacobson Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2010 The dissertation of Gretchen Ursula Schrock-Jacobson was reviewed and approved* by the following: Douglas Lemke Associate Professor of Political Science Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee D. Scott Bennett Professor of Political Science Head of the Department of Political Science Burt Monroe Associate Professor of Political Science Catherine Wanner Associate Professor of History, Anthropology, and Religious Studies Lee Ann Banaszak Associate Professor of Political Science Director of Graduate Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii Abstract Scholars and laypeople alike often consider nationalism to be a primarily destructive phenomenon because it supposedly has the potential to promote extremely violent international conflict and other atrocities. By glorifying the history, myths, and attributes of a national group while marginalizing or dehumanizing excluded groups, nationalism creates unbridgeable differences, irresolvable animosities, and perceived existential threats conducive to the outbreak of violence. Despite this argument’s widespread acceptance, the extant literature does not adequately theorize about or assess the relationship between nationalism and violent international conflict. Theorization has focused almost exclusively on the association between nationalism and the incidence of interstate violence, preventing the formulation of a comprehensive theory regarding nationalism’s impact on international conflict behavior. Furthermore, any insights derived from existing theories are dubious because they are supported mainly on the basis of a nonrandom sample of case studies. My dissertation addresses these problems in the literature. I first develop a comprehensive theory of the relationship between nationalism and international conflict behavior, specifically in terms of war initiation, severity, and duration. I argue that, in order to obtain mass cooperation, political elites embed their goals and the related policies in nationalist rhetoric and images. However, these “nationalist persuasion campaigns” can result in several mechanisms that promote long and deadly international conflict. Nationalism can provoke “national enemies” and their foreign allies, generate biased strategic assumptions, create domestic interest groups that favor war, permit the suppression of opposition groups, and promote “nationalist bidding wars” that bring about unexpectedly more aggressive military iii policies. It is possible that these mechanisms affect international conflict behavior to varying degrees depending on the form of nationalism present in a particular state. Therefore, I construct a series of hypotheses regarding the effect of four types of nationalism on three facets of international conflict behavior. In order to assess the accuracy of my argument and move beyond the qualitative techniques that have limited generalizability, I use original data on the existence and type of state-level nationalism from 1816 to 1991 and quantitative analysis (namely, summary statistics, cross-tabulations, and specialized regression models). I find that nationalism contributes to the initiation of more deadly conflicts, but not necessarily to longer wars. Nationalism significantly increases both the probability that a state will initiate an interstate war and the number of battle deaths the war will cause. There is greater uncertainty surrounding the effect of nationalism on interstate war duration. Nationalism in the initiator significantly decreases the length of war, while nationalism in the target significantly increases it, though only during the twentieth century. None of nationalism’s subtypes has an unambiguous effect on international conflict behavior that is consistent with the expected pattern of violent conflict. Given that nationalism encouraged the initiation of more lethal conflicts from 1816 to 1991, one may suspect that the international community might not have to concern itself as much in the future with the violent ramifications of nationalism due to increasing globalization. Yet, the empirical evidence described in the last part of my dissertation shows that this is not the case; national attachment and pride are still ubiquitous among individuals in more developed countries, due to perceived unsatisfactory economic conditions. Political leaders and the global community in general must then be cognizant of nationalism’s potentially violent consequences and support efforts to combat its divisiveness and prevent the accession of extreme-right parties. iv Otherwise, the possibility of extremely violent nationalist conflict and the ensuing human suffering remains. v Table of Contents List of Tables …………………………………………………………………………………...viii List of Figures ………………………………………………………………………………….....x Acknowledgements ………………………………………………………………………………xi Chapter 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………..…...1 Chapter 2. The Violent Consequences of the Nation: Nationalism and the Initiation of Interstate War …………………….…………………………………..................................20 The State of the Literature ………………………………………………………………22 A Theory of Nationalist Conflict ………………………………………………………..24 The Varieties of Nationalism and Their Effect on Conflict .…………………………….29 Data and Methods ……………………………………………………………………….37 Dependent Variable ……………………………………………………………..37 Independent Variables …………………………………………………………..38 General Nationalism Variables …………………………...……………..38 Specific Nationalism Variables ………………………………………….39 Control Variables ………………………………………………………..………43 Statistical Models ………………………………………………………………..45 Results …………………………………………………………………………………...46 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………53 Chapter 3. Dying for the Nation: Nationalism and Interstate War Severity …….....56 A Theory of the Severity of Nationalist Wars …………………………………………..59 The Types of Nationalism and Their Effect on War Severity …………………………..67 Data and Methods ……………………………………………………………………….76 Dependent Variable ……………………………………………………………..76 Independent Variables …………………………………………………………..77 General Nationalism Variables ………………………………………….77 Specific Nationalism Variables ………………………………………….79 Control Variables ………………………………………………………………..84 Statistical Models ………………………………………………………………..86 Results …………………………………………………………………………………...87 Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………93 Chapter 4. Fighting for National Glory: Nationalism and Interstate War Duration ......................................................................................................................................96 A Theory of the Duration of Nationalist Wars ………………………………………….99 The Forms of Nationalism and Their Effect on War Duration ………………………...106 Data and Methods ……………………………………………………………………...115 Dependent Variable ……………………………………………………………115 Independent Variables …………………………………………………………116 General Nationalism Variables ………………………………………...116 Specific Nationalism Variables ………………………………………...117 vi Control Variables …………………………………….………………………...118 Statistical Models ………………………………………………………………119 Results ………………………………………………………………………………….120 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..131 Chapter 5. The Lexus vs. the Olive Tree: Individual Choice between Nationalism and Globalism …..………………………………………………………...............................134 Defining Globalization and Nationalism ………………………………………………137 The Status of Nationalism Under Globalization ……………………………………….139 Understanding Globalism and Nationalism ……………………………………………143 Data and Methods ……………………………………………………………………...151 Dependent Variable ……………………………………………………………153 Independent Variables …………………………………………………………155 Statistical Model ……………………………………………………………………….157 Results ………………………………………………………………………………….159 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..163 Chapter 6. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………..166 Policy Implications …………………………………………………………………….172 Future Research ………………………………………………………………………..174 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………..184 Appendix A: An Example of the Coding Procedures for Nationalism Using the Country-Year Unit of Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………..185 Appendix B: Nationalism and Interstate Wars, 1816-1991 ……………………………………188 Appendix C: An Example of the Coding Procedures for Nationalism Using the Interstate War Unit of Analysis ………………………………………………………………………………..194 Appendix D: A Conditional Model of Individual-Level Enlightened Nationalism versus Traditional Nationalism ………………………………………………………………………..196 References ……………………………………………………………………………………...197 vii List of Tables Table 1. The Relationship between the Different Types of Nationalism and International Conflict Behavior …………………………………………………………………………………………16 Table 2. The Relationship of the Different Types of Nationalism to Interstate War Initiation …31 Table 3. Descriptive Statistics of the Types of Nationalism …………………………………….42 Table 4. A Cross-Tabulation of Interstate War Initiation and Nationalism ……………………..46 Table 5. The Effect of Nationalism on Interstate War Initiation, Model 1 ……………………...48 Table 6. The Change in the Probability of Interstate War Initiation Given Changes in the Explanatory Variables, Model 1 ………………………………………………………………...49 Table 7. The Effect of Nationalism on Interstate