Impermanence and Change - Hungarian National Identity between 1995 and 2023
letöltésCseh, Gergely; Örkény, Antal
Impermanence and Change - Hungarian National Identity between 1995 and 2023
Within the framework of the International Social Science Survey Program (ISSP), Hungary conducted the fourth survey on the national identity knowledge base. The data collection took place in 1995, 2003, 2013, and 2023. While the composition of the questionnaire has slightly changed over the different waves of questioning, many questions remained consistent and were asked to respondents included in the nationally representative sample across all four rounds. This study does not address the results from earlier international comparisons (Csepeli–Örkény 2021), especially since international data for 2023-2024 are not yet available. Instead, this article focuses solely on comparing the 2023 Hungarian survey data with responses to the same questions from the three preceding rounds. This allows for an analysis of the structural elements of Hungarian national identity and how they have evolved over nearly two decades.
Our analysis is based on six key areas of the national identity knowledge base. First, we explore the structure of the categorization that defines the nature of national belonging, which is built upon emotional and cognitive processes. Among these, we examine the patterns of national pride and shame, followed by the development of the ethnocentric components of national sentiment, whose variations continue to influence modern nationalist political and ideological views. The temporal evolution of the national identity knowledge base is concluded with an examination of the changes in attitudes towards foreigners. Subsequently, through cluster analysis, we attempt to uncover the mental variants of Hungarian national identity and analyze their content. Finally, we investigate the social and political embedding of the different viewpoints of Hungarian national identity that we have identified.