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The concept of national identity

Bhikhu Parekh
a

Professor of Political Theory, University of Hull

Version of record first published: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Bhikhu Parekh (1995): The concept of national identity, Journal of Ethnic
and Migration Studies, 21:2, 255-268
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new community 21(2):255-268

April 1995

The concept of national identity

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Bhikhu Parekh
Abstract Although national identity is a subject of much agonised debate in almost all
countries today, the debate is marred by several dubious assumptions. These include
such beliefs as that national identity consists in being different from others and is diluted
by intercultural borrowing, that it is historically fixed, that it is the sole or the major
source of political legitimacy, that the state's primary task is to maintain it, and that
national identity defines the limits of permissible diversity. The author challenges these
and related assumptions. He argues that national identity is a not a substance but a
cluster of tendencies and values, that it is neither fixed nor alterable at will, and that it
needs to be periodically redefined in the light of historically inherited characteristics,
present needs, and future aspirations.

There is hardly a country in the world today in which national identity is not a
subject of agonised public debate. Their citizens frequently complain that they
'lack' or have 'lost' their sense of national identity or that it has become 'diluted',
'eroded', 'corrupted' or 'confused', and wonder how they can 'acquire', 'retain',
'preserve' or 'strengthen' it. In this article I intend to analyse the nature and
dynamics of national identity and to question some of the central assumptions
informing the debate on it.

Meaning of the term

Much of the debate on national identity is marred by a lack of clarity on its
meaning. When we talk about national identity, as distinct from personal or
religious identity, we have in mind the identity of a territorially organised
community or, what we may for convenience call, a polity. Since the latter lacks
a popularly accepted adjective, it is understandable that we should opt for the
term 'national'. The term nation, however, has a long history and carries a heavy
ideological baggage. It refers to a homogeneous and collectively self-conscious
ethno-cultural unit, a spiritual whole that shapes the substance and identity of
its members. Not every polity is or wishes to be organised in this way. To talk
of national identity is to convey the wrong impression that every polity is or
should be constituted as a nation, and even that it cannot have an identity unless
it is so constituted.1 I suggest that we drop the term 'national identity', and
replace it with the term 'collective identity of a polity' or other such expressions.
The latter expression not only conveys all that we intend to convey by the term
national identity, but also avoids the conscious and unconscious influence of the
assumptions associated with the terms nation and national. If this seems too
drastic, we may continue to use the term national identity provided we constantly bear in mind that we mean by it nothing more than the collective identity
Bhikhu Parekh is Professor of Political Theory at the University of Hull.
0047-9586/95/020255-14 Journals Oxford Ltd, published on behalf of ERCOMER

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of a polity, and that we remain agnostic about whether a well-ordered polity

needs to be constituted as a nation.
As for the term identity it is used in much of the literature in several different
senses, of which the following four are the most common.
First, some equate identity with difference, and argue that to explore a polity's
identity is to explore what makes it distinct and distinguishable from others.2
Secondly, some equate identity with self-understanding, with what the polity
understands itself to be, and argue that to explore or ascertain the identity of a
polity is to explore its self-conception or self-understanding.3
Thirdly, some writers equate identity with deeply cherished values, goals and
commitments, and argue that to ascertain the identity of a polity is to ask what
it stands for, what is central goals or values are, what projects define it and
evoke its undivided loyalty and commitment.4
Fourthly, for some writers identity refers to the inner constitution, the central
organising principles, the constitutive characteristics, that make a polity the kind
of polity it is. For them to inquire into the identity of a polity is to uncover its
organising principles, its deepest tendencies, impulses, ideals, values, beliefs,
dispositions, characteristic ways of thought, etc.5
I suggest that, of these four usages, the last is the most comprehensive and
coherent. The other three emphasise specific aspects of identity and mistakenly
equate these with the whole.
Identity and difference are logically interrelated concepts in the sense that to
know something is also to know what it is not. However the two are neither
identical nor of equal ontological importance. One person differs from another
because each is constituted in a specific way, that is, because each has a specific
identity. Identity is logically and ontologically prior to difference, and the latter
cannot be its basis or criterion. If others were to become like us such that our
differences from them diminished, that would not in the least affect our identity.
They have changed, but we have not, and the changes in their identity cannot
change ours. We do not cease to be who we are when others cease to be different
from us. And when we are different from them, it is not the difference per se but
that fact that it springs from the kind of persons we are that is of ultimate
importance.
The equation of identity with difference, with what is unique and specific to
an entity, leads to paradoxes and proves self-defeating. My differences from
others diminish not only when I become like them but also when they become
like me. As we saw it is odd, even incoherent to say that my identity has changed
when theirs has. If this were true we would have to say that we have changed
when others have, although we may have remained the same! Furthermore,
when difference is made the basis of identity, others become our point of
reference, and we constantly strive to measure ourselves against them lest we
should become like them. This locates the centre of our identity outside ourselves, and secures it at the expense of our autonomy. Besides to locate identity
in difference is to fetishise the latter, to foster the spirit of exclusiveness, to
discourage mutual borrowing, and to be more worried about being different
from others than about being true to oneself. In short, difference cannot be the
basis of identity, and is important only insofar as it grows naturally out of the
kind of person one is.
The second usage of identity, which equates it with self-understanding, is
equally unsatisfactory. It wrongly implies that we are what we understand

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ourselves to be, that we are what we think we are. Our identity is shaped by a
number of factors such as our upbringing, childhood experiences, the unconsciously absorbed influences of our surroundings, the half-digested and often
poorly comprehended experiences of our adult life, and deep cultural memories,
dreams, and myths. Our self-understanding is one of these factors, but it is not
the only one. Besides many aspects of our identity are often too deep and
complex to be accessible to self-consciousness, and hence our self-understanding
falls considerably short of full self-knowledge and remains partial and limited.
It would be odd, even incoherent, to say that they are not part of our identity
simply because they do not form part of our self-understanding. Again, selfunderstanding presupposes a self to be understood, that is, a self that is already
formed in a specific way and precedes and constitutes the subject matter of
reflection. This is why it is possible to discuss if our self-understanding is
correct, incorrect, or only partially correct.
The third usage, which equates identity with goals, values and commitments,
repeats some of the mistakes of the second. Goals, etc. are an integral part of our
identity, but so are such other things as our ways of thought, deepest psychological and moral dispositions, and cultural memories. Besides goals and values do
not emerge and operate in a vacuum. They spring from and derive their appeal
and energy from their relations with other aspects of our identity. We do shape
our identity by consciously pursuing specific goals and making specific commitments, but equally the nature, content, definition and the likely effects of our
goals and commitments are shaped by these other and never fully understood
aspects. To equate identity with goals and commitments is to imply that we are
what we self-consciously make of ourselves, that identity is a project, and thus
to invoke an untenably rationalist and volitionalist view of identity.
I suggest that although identity involves self-understanding, goals, values,
differences from others, and so on, it is a much wider concept, whose specificity
is best captured by the last usage. Basically and somewhat crudely, our identity
refers to who we are, how we are constituted, what makes us the kind of persons
we are. It includes the central organising principles of our being, our deepest
tendencies, dominant passions, characteristic ways of thought, deeply held
values, ideals, attachments, commitments, our psychological and moral dispositions, traits of temperament, the way we define and understand ourselves, etc.
In the light of our brief discussion, we can form a reasonably coherent
conception of national identity. National identity refers to the way a polity is
constituted, to what makes it the kind of community it is. It includes the central
organising principles of the polity, its structural tendencies, characteristic ways
of thinking and living, the ideals that inspire its people, the values they profess
and to which its leaders tend to appeal, the kind of character they admire and
cherish, their propensities to act in specific ways, their deepest fears, ambitions,
anxieties, collective memories, traumatic historical experiences, dominant myths
and collective self-understandings. To explore the national identity of a polity is
to explore all these and to offer a faithful account of the kind of polity it is.

Cultural and political identity

Every territorially organised society has a shared way of life or a shared culture.
A way of life represents a specific mode of regulating the personal and
interpersonal life and involves shared forms of thought and behaviour. It entails

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shared self-understanding, that is, a body of ideas, images and myths in terms
of which its members understand and organise their lives and interpret and
assign meanings to each other's actions and utterances. It also involves a shared
body of rules, conventions, practices, and values which regulate how they
should behave towards each other in different contexts as well as their mutual
expectations and obligations. Like a language to which it bears considerable
resemblance and with which it is closely intertwined, a way of life can be rich
or poor but never meaningless, and lived with varying degrees of elegance and
subtlety depending on one's mastery of its resources.
Since a way of life involves a specific mode of behaviour and a specific
understanding of life, it requires and encourages specific traits of temperament,
psychological and moral dispositions, motivational structures, a specific range of
emotions and modes of expressing them, and so forth. In other words, every
way of life presupposes and cultivates what may loosely be called a common
social character among its members. The English way of life is based on and
cherishes such qualities as self-containment, self-discipline, respect for privacy,
an undemonstrative approach to human relations, and cautiousness in the
presence of strangers. The Indian way of life is differently structured and
cherishes different qualities. As long as an Indian retains his characteristic
qualities of temperament and character, he remains a relative outsider to the
English way of life and cannot fully and effortlessly participate in it. If he is
skilful, he might find his way around in it, but he can never feel at ease in it and
will always speak its conceptual language in an alien accent. A shared social
character and a shared way of life are intertwined. The latter reflects and
sustains and is in turn underpinned and nurtured by the former. To participate
in a way of life is to acquire the social character presupposed by it. In modern
society autonomous individuals lead different ways of life, take pride in developing different personal identities, and acquire different qualities of temperament and character. Although their social character therefore contains great
internal variations, they cannot share a common way of life and sustain constant
and close interactions without acquiring a family of broad characteristics in
common.
A territorially organised society then is a body of individuals bound together
by virtue of their participation in a shared way of life. What varies with the
individual and is not habitually shared by all or the bulk of its members is not
a part of its collective identity. And even when a practice is cultivated by many
or most of its members, it does not form part of their collective identity if their
cultivation of it is coincidental and not a response to social expectations and
ethos. For example, if some members of a society happen to be eccentric, as they
generally are in every society, their eccentricity in no way reflects on their
society and tells us nothing about it except perhaps that it is tolerant. But if
eccentricity is collectively encouraged in their society and is cultivated by them
as a social practice, as is believed to be the case in England, then their
eccentricity is a part of its collective identity.
Every modern society is internally differentiated and articulated into different
and relatively autonomous areas of life, such as the economic, the religious, the
political, the artistic, and the educational. Each of these areas has a distinct
character, entails a different mode of organisation, and calls for different
qualities of temperament and character. The armed forces, for example, develop
different psychological and moral qualities and forms of interpersonal relations

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to religious and educational institutions. This means that although different

areas of life are embedded in and nurtured by a shared way of life, they
articulate it differently and add to it new elements of their own. As Hume put
it, 'A soldier and a priest are different characters in all nations, and all ages.' The
British army shares much with the British university, for they are both part of
the British way of life. But they also display different forms of organisation and
discipline, and draw on and develop different qualities of British character.
Every modern way of life contains several overlapping ways of life, based on
class, occupation, gender, etc., each different but also sharing several features
with others by virtue of being embedded in a common way of life. While it is
true that different classes and occupations tend to develop different ways of life,
they cannot interact and work together unless their relations are defined and
structured by a constantly negotiated but nonetheless shared way of life. In
modern society autonomous individuals choose their ways of life within the
broad limits set by their commonly shared way of life, and that adds to the
latter's diversity. As a result of all this, the commonly shared way of life and
social character get considerably thinned down, and have often only a minimum
content necessary to hold the society together.
The economic, military, educational and other areas of life have distinct
characters that remain common to different societies. Although they are no
doubt influenced by the way of life of the wider society, they have autonomous
structures that cut across different ways of life. For example, although British
universities differ from their French counterparts, they also resemble them in
several significant respects. Qua universities they seek to pursue common goals,
which require them to organise themselves in similar ways. At one level all
Britons share a common collective identity, irrespective of whether they are
soldiers, academics or workers. At another level all soldiers, academics and
workers share a common identity irrespective of whether they are British,
French or American. A British academic has much in common with both a
British soldier and an American academic. Even as the collective identity of a
community contains internal diversity, collective identities of different communities overlap and share several common features. The identity of a community is never homogeneous and exclusive.
Every territorially organised society needs to make arrangements for the
conduct of its collective affairs. It wishes to live together and function as an
independent community in a world of other such communities. It therefore
requires a system of rules and procedures, what we may call a constitution,
laying down who is entitled to speak in its name both to its members and to
outsiders and to take collectively binding decisions. The constitution articulates
and structures the political life of the community. The political life is a concentrated expression and focus of the life of the community, and represents an area
where the latter becomes conscious of itself as a single and unified collectivity.
Even as the shared way of life unites the members of a community at the cultural
level, the shared mode of conducting its collective affairs unites them at the
political level.

The political life of a community is embedded in and deeply shaped by its

wider culture. However it also has its own distinct and autonomous character,
and both articulates the cultural identity of the community in a distinct manner
and adds to it new elements of its own. A community's culture might be racist,
but it might choose, as the United States did, to collectively commit itself to a

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non-racist polity and grant all its citizens full legal and political equality. Or, its
culture might be authoritarian and hierarchical, but it might decide, as many a
developing country did, to break with it by enshrining the principles of liberal
individualism in the constitution of its polity. This is not to deny that there are
limits to the extent to which a polity can diverge from the wider culture of the
community, but only to argue that the polity is autonomous and can depart from
the prevailing values and practices within certain limits.
The relation between the political life of the community and its wider culture
takes many forms. In traditional societies the former derives its legitimacy from
and pursues goals set by the traditional guardians of the community's culture.
Its autonomy is considerably limited, and the community's political identity is
largely though not wholly an organic expression of its cultural identity. The
opposite is the case in the transitional, developing or modernising societies.
Their political institutions aim to transform and reconstitute the traditional
society on an entirely new foundation. They are based on different principles to
those of the community at large, and seek by all manner of institutional devices
to insulate themselves against the latter's pressures. The community's political
identity here is at considerable variance with its cultural identity, and the
tension between the two is felt in all areas of life. In developed modern societies,
the relationship between the political life and the wider culture, between the
political and the cultural identity of the community, is much more complex and
falls between these two extremes. The polity here is both autonomous and
embedded in the wider community, and both shapes and is in turn shaped by
the latter.
A territorially organised society then is both a cultural and a political community, and its identity is articulated at both cultural and political levels. It is a
cultural community because its members broadly share a common way of life,
and a political community because they share a common mode of conducting
their collective affairs. Its cultural identity lies in the character of its shared way
of life, its political identity in the way its political life is constituted. As we saw,
although the two identities are related, they are also different and mutually
irreducible. A community's cultural identity might be secure but not its political
identity, as was for long the case with Germany and India. The reverse can also
occur; for example, with contemporary Iran and Algeria. Cultural and political
identities are threatened and preserved in different ways. The former is diffused,
has a weak enforcement mechanism and an ecclectic character, and is not easy
to define and preserve. By contrast political identity has an objective point of
reference in the community's legal and political institutions, is a subject of
constant public discussion and attention, is preserved in the recorded memory
of the community, and is therefore comparatively easy to elucidate and maintain.
I have so far argued that the collective identity of a territorially organised
society is articulated at two overlapping levels, the cultural and the political. In
the rest of this article, I shall concentrate on political identity, and only refer to
cultural identity when necessary.

Complexity of political identity

The political identity of a community refers to the way its political life is
constituted, and includes the manner in which it conceptualises and demarcates

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its political life, organises and manages its collective affairs, structures its legal
and political institutions and conducts its political discourse. It also includes the
values to which the polity is collectively committed, and the qualities of
temperament and character it admires and on which it relies for the smooth
conduct of its affairs. A community's political identity also refers to its deepest
fears, ambitions, anxieties, tendencies, dominant myths, traumatic historical
experiences and collective memories. Since a political community exists among
other such communities, to elucidate its identity is also to show how it differs
from them.
Since different polities have different histories and are embedded in different
ways of life, their political identities vary greatly. We may take two of them by
way of illustration. Unlike Britain and France, Germany became a state very late
in its history. For a variety of reasons the amorphous 'Holy Roman Empire of
the German Nation' did not transform itself into a modern state in the way that
Britain and France did. Some areas of the Empire had no Germans living in it,
and some of those in which they lived were not part of it. Its constitutional
framework was so confused that a special science, the so-called Reichspublizistik
was needed to understand it. In the words of Samuel Pufendorf, it was corpus
irregulare ..monstro simile (an irregular body ..like that of a monster). There was
no feeling of belonging to a larger unit, and people's loyalties were largely
regional and topped up by a vague Reichspatriotismus.6 Not surprisingly Germany was popularly called not Deutschland but die deutschen Lande. Unable to
emerge as a modern state, the political consciousness of the Germans was for
long dominated by two myths, that of the past empire which one day they
hoped to regain, and the corresponding myth of being 'cheated' and 'denied
their historical due by 'hostile others', especially France (see Kemper 1989).
Lacking a unified state of their own, the Germans located their unity in the
nation, largely defined in linguistic and cultural terms (see Dyson 1980). Germany was a Kulturnation but not yet a Staatsnation, a distinction that is unique
to it, and the Germans thought of themselves as Volkgenossen or ethnic comrades.
Until the end of the Second World War, Germany distinguished between
Deutschen (citizens of German descent) Reichdeutschen (German citizens of nonGerman descent) and Volkdeutschen (individuals of German descent living in
other countries). Germany belonged to the Germans, who formed the German
nation, and the task of the German state was to express the unity of the German
nation. The state was not a legal or political but a cultural and spiritual
institution articulating and safeguarding the German national soul, an irreducibly unique and organic Volkgemeinschaft. It was viewed as a socially transcendental entity charged with the task of moulding its citizens and reshaping
the wider society in the national image. In such a climate civil society, individual
rights and liberties, constitutionalism, a limited state and so on lacked secure
spaces of growth. The Germans both welcomed and shied away from modernity
and kept looking for a Sonderweg, as is evident in the thinking even of such a
liberal as Max Weber. They took a romantic and moralistic view of the role of
the state and exempted it from the ordinary moral constraints. Ernst Troeltsch
put the point well:
German political thinking exhibits a strange conflict evident to everybody and that can be
seen from outside. On the one hand it is filled with romanticism and sublime spirituality.
But on the other hand it exhibits realism bordering on cynicism and is absolutely indifferent

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to spirituality and morality. Above all it strangely tends to mix both together; to brutalise
romanticism and to romanticise cynicism (Troeltsch 1925, see also Brubaker 1990).

The Nazi period drew upon and intensified these trends and suppressed such
dissenting liberal strands of thought as had begun to develop during the
Weimar years. Post-war Germany was characterised by a profound anxiety over
its political identity, and sought to break with it in favour of a liberal democratic
polity of the Anglo-Saxon, especially the American, variety. This paved the way
for a new form of political life with its characteristic modes of thought, political
discourse, values and qualities of character.
The German political identity is a product of and reveals the continuing
influence of these and other political experiences. It harbours the misguided but
still fairly deep feelings of historical injustice, an unhappy nostalgia for a
romanticised past, intense cultural nationalism, powerful statism, an intriguing
mixture of profound self-doubt and deep moral certainty and of low political
self-esteem and great cultural and economic pride, and so forth. The German
political identity also contains different and sometimes incompatible moral and
political tendencies. Thanks to its wish to break with its Nazi past, it follows the
most generous asylum and even immigration policies, and has given refuge to
more people than all the West European countries put together. Yet thanks to its
historically and still highly influential ethnic conception of citizenship, it does
not grant its Turkish migrants the rights of citizenship which it generously
extends to Germans settled in the ex-Soviet Union and in eastern Europe. Its
political discourse reveals similar tensions. It cherishes individual rights, liberties and the freedom to choose one's way of life, but it also insists on the
integrity of the 'German national culture' and the global unity of the 'German
nation'. As a result of all this, its civil and criminal laws, educational policies,
and so forth, display considerable incoherence.7
The American political identity represents a remarkable contrast to the German case.8 Unlike Germany, the United States has a distinct geographical and
historical identity. Its territorial boundaries have never been in doubt, its birth
as a polity is clearly dated historically, its Constitution has continued to provide
a clear statement of its constitutive political principles, and its very name daily
reminds its citizens of the plural and assocational character of their polity. Since
the United States was created by an act of choice and since most of its white
inhabitants voluntarily became its citizens, the concept of choice remains an
integral part of its political self-consciousness and is evident in much of its
political theory. Unlike the traditional German political identity, the American
political identity is defined in political not ethnic terms. To be patriotic is to be
loyal not to the American Volk but to the American way of life, which is only
partially articulated in its Constitution. Although American patriotism can be
intensely narrow and aggressive, its political character qualitatively distinguishes it from the ethno-cultural patriotism of the Germans.
Unlike Germany, American citizenship is in principle open to all. But it is
granted on condition that the naturalised citizen gives up his earlier allegiances
and loyalties and whole-heartedly identifies himself with his new country.
America is believed to represent a 'new world' which receives and 'melts'
outsiders into a 'new race' of 'new men' prepared to shed their old prejudices,
manners and habits. American citizenship is seen as a kind of rebirth, a
conversion, involving replacement of one identity with another, and has a

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quasi-religious orientation with the Constitution as a sacred text or a political

scripture and the Supreme Court as its high priest. It is informed by a distinct
and unitary notion of what it is to be an 'American', and shadowed by a
powerful conception of what constitutes an 'un-American' activity or belief.
Since the German political identity is defined in ethnic terms, a German can be
a communist without feeling that he has thereby ceased to be an 'authentic' or
a 'true' German. And since his ethnic and national loyalty is largely taken for
granted, he does not need constantly to prove it to himself or to others. The
American situation is quite different. Since its political identity is defined in
constitutional terms, it retains a strong ideological core and puts pressure on all
'true' Americans to stay within a specific range of beliefs and practices and to
prove their loyalty to their country. In recent decades the United States has
accepted the idea of hyphenated identity, but continues to define it within the
framework of a unitary view of American citizenship. A Polish-American is first
and foremost an American exactly like all others. The Polish half of his identity
only refers to his origins and has no political significance. His nationality is
depoliticised, ethnicised, and reduced to a dispensable cultural adjunct to his
political status as a citizen.
A detailed discussion of the American political identity would also need to
explore and explain its several other characteristic features. It would need to
analyse the distinctive character of its individualism, the ease with which the
country seems to accept the pursuit of individual or group interest at the
expense of public interest, and the apparent incompatibility between the restricted political choices of its citizens and their unlimited legal and moral choices of
life-styles. One would also need to trace the roots of its rights-centred and
legalistic political discourse, the deeply religious basis of its way of life in spite
of the rigid separation between the church and the state, its political selfrighteousness, the nature and influence of the 'American dream' that is often a
nightmare for many of its citizens, and so forth.
Every long-established community then has a recognisable political identity. It
defines, organises, and conducts its collective affairs in its own distinct way, is
dominated by unique fears, dreams, hopes, and myths, and cultivates different
qualities of temperament and character. Some have deep propensities towards
extremism, and do not know how to restrain these. Others are either free of
these, or possess countervailing tendencies that constantly hold them in check.
Some polities that have a more or less continuous and honourable history and
a relatively coherent way of life find their identity a source of pride. Those with
a painful or discontinuous history or propensities towards extremism and
racism view their political identity with mixed feelings. The differences in the
political identities of different countries become strikingly clear if we compare
the different ways in which they have conceptualised and conducted controversies surrounding such issues as abortion, gay rights, and the Muslim protests
against Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses.
The political identity of a community then is a complex structure made up of
different elements and tendencies derived from its history, geography, religion,
social structure, the wider way of life and self-understanding. It is never
coherent and harmonious and often pulls in different directions. It is not static
either. With changes in the wider way of life and in the community's circumstances, needs and historical experiences, it develops new tendencies, fears and
myths, abandons old ones, changes their inner balance, and perceptibly or

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imperceptibly alters its identity. A community might suffer an economic or

moral decline,, or face unprecedented challenges. It then needs to identify its
strengths and weaknesses, build on one and overcome the other, and so
reinterpret its past as to draw new inspiration from it. Furthermore no society
can function without some conception of itself, and that too plays an important
part in shaping its identity. The British think of themselves as a fair-minded
people. In fact, like all other communities, they are both fair and unfair. But
since they define themselves in terms of one set of tendencies, they set and judge
themselves by certain norms and endeavour to live up to them. In so doing they
become fair and alter their character and way of life.
This is how all communities constantly recreate themselves. By emphasising
some aspects of their character, setting themselves new goals and redefining
themselves in certain ways, they acquire new capacities, develop new tendencies, and alter their identity. The process of self-creation does not occur in a
historical vacuum. A community inherits a specific way of life and character,
which set limits to how and how much it can change itself. The change is lasting
and deep if it is grafted on the community's suitably reinterpreted deepest
tendencies and does not go against the grain. A community's political identity
then is neither unalterable and fixed, nor a voluntarist project to be executed as
it pleases, but a matter of slow self-recreation within the limits set by its past.
The more accurate its self-understanding, the more informed is the process of
self-recreation, and the more coherent is the identity it develops.
All attempts to define the political (and cultural) identity of a community
involve a good deal of distortion and myth-making. This is so for a variety of
interrelated reasons. Since political identity is a precipitate of countless forgotten
or half-comprehended factors, it is too deep to be fully accessible to even the
most critical self-reflection, and every account of it is necessarily partial. Besides
it is by its very nature a precarious balance of different and sometimes incompatible tendencies, each qualified and limited by others, and distorted when stated
in abstraction from them. British toleration, for example, has distinct psychological and moral roots, which both delimit its extent and breed distinct forms of
intolerance. The British are therefore both tolerant and intolerant, and to stress
one to the exclusion of the other is to utter a half-truth. Michael Oakeshott makes
a similar point when he argues that for the past three centuries, modern
European consciousness has been deeply divided between individualist and
collectivist tendencies, and that the unresolved and apparently irresoluble tension between them explains much of its moral and political life (see Oakeshott
1974). Since the political identity of a community contains conflicting tendencies,
which are reconciled differently on different occasions, a full statement of it
requires a patient and complex analysis and can never be provided in simple
and unqualified assertions.
Again, societies, like individuals, go about their daily business in a largely
unselfconscious manner, and rely on their inherited self-conceptions. They
become intensely self-conscious and raise disturbing questions about their
identity only when they feel that their way of life is threatened. National identity
has become an important issue today in many countries partly because national
boundaries are being weakened by global and macro-regional pressures from
above and local and micro-regional pressures from below, and partly because
the traditional system of moral values is undergoing profound changes. Since
the question of national identity is generally raised in a climate of panic, there

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is a tendency to stress only those elements that are under threat. When such
moderately religious societies as Iran and Algeria felt threatened by secularism,
their religious leaders argued that religion was the very basis of their way of life
and central to all they held dear. Those supporting secularism argued the
opposite. When Britain began to suffer an economic and political decline in the
1960s and 1970s, the New Right blamed it on the loss of Victorian values. Its
critics argued that such a nostalgia was the root of the problem and that the
country needed to make a clean break with its past. In the heat of the debate,
there was little space for a complex and nuanced account of these countries'
cultural and political identities. As a general rule, the very context in which the
question of identity is raised makes it difficult to achieve a balanced response.
In political life an appeal to the community's political (or cultural) identity
plays a powerful ideological role. The most effective way to recommend or
condemn a policy or a course of action is to argue respectively that it alone is
consistent with, or that it deeply offends, the community's identity. Every social
group therefore has a vital stake in promoting a view of the community's
identity that serves its interests and marginalises its opponents. Margaret
Thatcher provided an excellent example of this. During her period of office she
repeatedly observed that since socialism was 'essentially' a 'continental'
phenomenon and 'at odds with the character of the British people', she was
determined to 'destroy' it in order to preserve the British identity. Her view of
British identity delegitimised the Labour Party as well as all those advocating
not only socialism but also some form of economic redistribution. The latter
groups rejoined with a wholly different view of British identity. What happened
in Britain occurs in every country. Political life is dominated by rival conceptions
of the collective identity, some more coherent than others but none wholly
satisfactory.
It is possible for a community's identity to undergo profound changes without
affecting its sense of identity. Beliefs, values, and the way of life of its members
might change considerably, but their sense of who they are might remain
constant and they might not experience stress or anxiety. After the Second
World War, Sweden got rid of its social and political hierarchy, developed an
egalitarian ethos, created a welfare state, and in general underwent profound
changes, but the Swedes did not feel disorientated by these changes. There are
several reasons why perception fails to keep pace with reality. Although the
cumulative impact of changes can be considerable, they often occur slowly,
giving those involved enough time to change with the changes. If changes were
to occur overnight, the situation would be different, but the constraints of
democratic political life and social stability ensure that this is not generally the
case. Besides the changes might occur in areas which those involved do not
consider central to their sense of identity. They might be mistaken and realise
this later, but the mistake cushions them against the immediate impact of the
changes. Furthermore in modern society change is an inseparable part of daily
life. The level of tolerance of change is therefore considerably greater than in
traditional societies, and people are often able to take even the most radical
changes in their stride.
Sometimes the opposite also occurs. A society's sense of identity might be
badly shaken even though the threat to its identity is insignificant. In several
British cities in the 1960s and 1970s, whites feared that the recent immigrants
were destroying their way of life, although in fact the latter were extremely

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B. Parekh

few in number and anxious to adjust to the British way of life. Similarly many
in the West today feel deeply threatened by Muslim 'fundamentalism', although
their fear is grossly exaggerated. Perception outpaces reality for a variety of
reasons. People are influenced by changes in their immediate environment, and
the fact that these are small when seen in a larger national context matters little
to them. Sometimes changes have a differential impact on different social
groups. And if the impact is greater on the most vocal and volatile, an
exaggerated impression of their overall significance gains currency. Again the
scale and depth of changes are often too difficult for most people to comprehend, who therefore remain vulnerable to the manipulations of the interested
media and politicians. Sometimes apparently trivial changes acquire undue
importance if they are believed to affect areas deemed to be central to the
community's identity. For example, immigrants might be few in number and
willing to adjust to the host society's way of life, but that makes no difference
to those who want their country to remain racially homogeneous or find it
extremely painful to relate to those not sharing their way of life. And, again,
Muslim 'fundamentalism' might not be a grave threat to the identity of western
society, but it is enough to worry those who deeply cherish secularism and free
speech and fear for their survival.
As we saw, people in modern society not only accept but welcome changes in
their material environment and even in their way of life, as is evident in their
use of new technology and the freedom offered by the so-called permissive
society. Yet they frequently complain about the loss, dilution or erosion of their
way of life. This apparent paradox is easily resolved. The values, ideals,
character traits and forms of interpersonal relations are not all equally valued by
their adherents. Individuals value some components more than others, consider
some but not others central to their way of life, and fear that the loss of what
they consider more valuable or central to their identity would change their way
of life extensively and deeply. While other values, practices, habits or traits of
temperament might be changed, those they cherish should not be, for if they
were to be abandoned, all that is valuable, worthwhile or distinctive in their way
of life would be lost.
To talk about the erosion or maintenance of a community's identity then
is to make a judgement about what within it is most valuable. Not every loss
but only the loss of what is greatly valued amounts to dilution. And similarly
to preserve or maintain a way of life is not to preserve it in its totality, but
only those elements that are considered most valuable. People holding different
moral norms are therefore bound to disagree about what constitutes an erosion
or maintenance of their shared identity. For some British people the increasing
'Americanisation' of their identity constituted its erosion; for Margaret Thatcher,
it amounted to its enrichment. Or rather since she saw or at least presented
the 'Americanisation' as really a return to the Victorian values, she viewed
the so-called erosion as really a restoration of the 'true' British identity that
had been 'eroded' by the post-war permissive society. Again some British
people see the weakening of their class system or the monarchy as an erosion
of their collective identity; for others these changes represent its muchneeded reconstitution. Debates about the reconstitution or maintenance
of the collective identity of a community are often about the different visions of
its future, misleadingly conducted in the language of preserving the identity
of the community.

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Conclusions
In the light of our discussion several important conclusions follow, of which
three deserve particular mention. First, national identity refers notas the
nationalist writers argueto a mysterious national soul, substance or spirit but
to the way a polity is constituted, and includes such things as its deepest
tendencies, dispositions, values, ideals, and ways of thought. Since national
identity develops over time and is not a product of a master design, it contains
disparate even contradictory elements and is not a coherent whole. Furthermore
it is articulated differently in different areas of life, each of which reflects,
refracts, reacts upon and transforms it, and is therefore internally differentiated
and neither homogenous and monolithic. And since many elements of national
identity are elusive and too deep to be accessible to critical self-consciousness, it
contains large areas of opacity. This partly explains why a community is
frequently surprised by, and cannot easily make sense of, its reactions and
behaviour. Not even the most acute student of Germany could have predicted
in the 1920s that a large section of the nation would acquiesce in massive acts
of genocide.
Secondly, a community's identity is subject to constant change, partly in
response to the changes in its environment and historical circumstances and
partly as a result of the changing self-conceptions, goals and ideals of its
members. Identity is closely bound up with the environment. When the village
post office, corner shop and other traditional meeting places disappear, those
involved, no longer now able to run into each other effortlessly and strike up
conversations, are forced to retreat into solitary and self-contained lives. With
vast changes in society occurring daily, the identity of a community constantly
undergoes profound and inexorable transformation. As the community faces
new challenges and threats, it is required to reappraise and revise its traditional
goals, values, institutions and self-understanding. These and other changes
undermine the familiar world in which the community's identity is embedded
and provoke deep anxieties. If the changes are deep and extensive, the anxieties
generate a veritable psychological and moral panic, and render the community
vulnerable to the false promises of religious fundamentalists, naive traditionalists and moral primitivists.
If a community fails to adjust to the changes and gets out of step with its
environment, it risks disintegration. If it changes too quickly or indiscriminately,
it loses its moral balance, drifts without a sense of direction, and again risks
disintegration. This is the paradox of identity, to which there are no simple
answers. Every community must wrestle with it as best it can, and find ways of
reconstituting its identity in a manner that is both deeply sensitive to its history
and traditions and fully alive to its present and future needs.
Thirdly, it is commonly argued that the identity of a community lies in its
distinctiveness, in being different from others. The hold of this belief is so
powerful and pervasive that all over the world, many communities deeply fear
modernisation and western values lest they should become 'like the west' and
lose their identity. As we saw, this belief is profoundly mistaken. Difference by
itself has nothing to do with identity, and wanting to remain different from
others simply for the sake of being different is irrational. A community does, of
course, need to be true to itself, but the self to which it needs to be true is neither
a coherent and homogeneous whole, nor an abiding and unchanging substance

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like the Christian soul, but a cluster of tendencies, impulses and values. It can
therefore be true to itself only by constantly relating its psychological and moral
resources to, and reinterpreting and revising them in the light of its current
needs and problems. Since other communities have undergone similar experiences, a community can learn much for them and benefit from judiciously
adopting their institutions and values. To fear such borrowing in the name of
'preserving' its identity is totally to misunderstand the nature and dynamics of
identity. Identity is not something that we have, rather it is what we are; it is not
a property but a mode of being. To talk of preserving, maintaining, safeguarding
or losing one's identity is to use misleading metaphors. As we saw earlier, by its
very nature a community's identity needs to be constantly reconstituted in the
light of its inherited resources, present needs and future aspirations.
Notes
1 For a further discussion, see Parekh 1995
2 This is characteristic of such earlier liberal and romantic writers as J.S. Mill (in some of his moods),
Herder and Schleiermacher and their modern day successors. It is the most common usage of the
term today. In his Considerations on the Government of Poland, Rousseau argued that since Poland
was in danger of losing its national identity, its educational system should stress its national
particularities even if they were devoid of intrinsic value. For him all states in a similar situation
had a duty to do so.
3 See, for example, David Miller's article in this issue. See also Habermas 1994.
4 This is one of the several usages to be found in Charles Taylor, Reconciling the Solitudes: Essays on
Canadian Federalism and Nationalism, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1993, especially
Chapter 8.
5 This usage is common among many French and German writers. See James Knoulton and Truett
Cates, Jr. 1993. Habermas too gestures towards it. See Habermas 1994: 164ff.
6 See the articles by Michael Stolleis and Karl Otmar Freiherr von Aretin in Gnter Birtsah (1991:
7-23; 25-36).
7 For a fuller discussion, see Parekh 1994.
8 I am most grateful to Professor John Pocock for a stimulating discussion on this subject

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