Remember John Lennon singing “Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do, nothing to kill of die for”. He did have a point: Aggressive nationalism has led to uncountable armed conflicts, among others two World Wars. In the 20th century alone, armed conflicts have killed approximately 231 million people. At the same time, there is a growing literature on “Fragile states”, finding that weak political entities without national cohesion result in catastrophic outcomes. The World Happiness Report scores of the unhappiest countries on earth illustrate this well, where many of the least happy countries suffer from “severe state fragility”. A very telling example is of course Afghanistan (ranked lowest in the World Happiness Report 2024) where especially women suffer from the loss of their most basic rights since the rise of the Taliban. And there is also substantial empirical evidence that low state capacity and lack of inter-group trust fuel the risks of armed conflict.
What does all of this mean for nation building? Both autocratic nationalism, as well as disintegrating states lacking the most basic national cohesion and identification make people’s lives miserable. Hence, we need to understand how public policies can foster a positive, inclusive identification with the state, without bearing risks of a slippery slope towards nationalism. In a recent article, together with Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, we investigated this balancing act. This survey is dedicated to studying the burgeoning academic literature on nation building, with the goal of being useful for both scholars and policymakers. For making sense of the booming empirical literature on the matter, it is first key to gain an overview of major methodological pitfalls and challenges (e.g., “how to distinguish causality from mere correlations?”) as well as measurement issues (e.g., “how to deal with reporting bias?”). Cutting-edge studies do not only rely on survey data and lab-in-field experiments, but they also draw on “revealed preferences”, i.e., inferred from naming choices, language uses, investment and consumption choices, voting patterns, friendship and marriage links, volunteering, residential integration / segregation and inter-group violence, to mention just a few.
Second, it is important to realize that initial conditions vary heavily and that some countries’ pathway to peaceful, prosperous, and inclusive nationhood is paved by more difficulties than others. In particular, as we find in the article, ethnic segregation and polarization matter heavily. While in very homogenous countries nation-building is easy, their greatest risk is nationalism and fascism — the best antidote to which are solid democratic checks and balances. In contrast, when countries are very ethnically polarized, there are two major constellations. When different ethnic groups live close together, a typical nation building strategy features “melting pot” strategies, fostering of a common identity. In contrast, when groups live far apart, in different corners of the country, federalism and decentralization are often adopted. What this shows is that optimal policies may depend substantially on initial conditions. There is no “one size fits all”.
There are however a set of policies that have been found in the literature to hold promise for a wide range of environments. First, well designed and inclusive education in state schools can help the formation of a positive national identification. Take Switzerland as an example. Fostering national identity has not always been easy in this country, given the long history of religious conflicts across Medieval times, the presence of several linguistic groups and a very heterogenous geography. In the wake of the French Revolution, demands for legal equality in Switzerland intensified. French troops invaded Switzerland in 1798 and the old Confederation collapsed, giving way first to the centralized Helvetic Republic and later, in 1803, to a looser federal system. After Napoleon’s defeat, the 1815 Federal Pact restored broad cantonal autonomy and fixed Switzerland’s modern borders, but deep conflicts between liberal reformers and Catholic-conservative cantons persisted, culminating in the brief Sonderbund War of 1847. The liberals’ victory paved the way for the 1848 Federal Constitution. It put in place various core institutions / values that today form an important part of Swiss identity, namely direct democracy, federalism, multi-linguism and neutrality. These values are also reinforced in the public education system which puts much emphasis on early age multi-language teaching. Further, as reviewed in our article, there is a growing literature on the so-called “contact hypothesis”, typically drawing on natural experiments or randomized control trials and demonstrating that (fair and non-discriminatory) contact between different groups helps to foster inter-group trust. In this light, inter-regional mobility programs, such as the ERASMUS student exchange scheme in Europe, offer much promise. Also the roles of leadership, propaganda, common experiences and external interventions are discussed in depth in our piece. For several of such determinants of inter-group relations, harmful effects can occur, e.g. when national unification is pursued based on the scapegoating of discriminated population groups.
Last, but not least, the crucial role of institutions is highlighted. Not only does the building of state capacity and federalist policies matter heavily, but also a series of features of democracy are of paramount salience. There is for example growing evidence that exogenous surges in power-sharing lead to a reduction in inter-group tensions, championing at the same time peace and prosperity. When all societal groups benefit from equal opportunities and fair political representation, fostering contact and inclusive, evidence-based education supports building a cohesive and democratic nation state.
