Abstract |
This paper shows a strong relationship between national pride and willingness to fight for one’s country in the case of war. This relationship is found in countries with great differences in their economic level, in their political systems and in their cultural systems, and it is also very stable over time. From the first comparisons to the last regression models, it has always appeared that national pride is a major predictor of willingness to fight for one’s country. However, there is a significant difference between Anglo-Saxon and West European countries in terms of national pride and willingness to defend one’s country. Especially more recently established countries and certainly Anglo-Saxon countries show a consistently greater national pride than Western Europe’s old nations. An explanation has been suggested: that citizens in Anglo-Saxon countries have not had the experience of fighting wars in their homeland, while West Europeans and Japan have suffered the effects of World War II in their own land, and therefore are less disposed to get involved in conflicts that require fighting. This would probably explain the different attitudes of European and Anglo-Saxon countries towards the recent conflict in Iraq, and it would also explain the mass demonstrations and massive public opinion rejecting participation in that conflict in many European countries, even when their governments had involved themselves in that conflict. |