Inclusiveness of identification among farmers in The Netherlands and Galicia (Spain)

In this paper we discuss inclusiveness of identification among farmers in Galicia (Spain) and The Netherlands. Identification with three nested categories—farmers in the local community, farmers in the country, and farmers in Europe was assessed among 167 Dutch and 248 Galician farmers at three points in time: winter of 1993/94, winter 1995 and fall 1995. Our findings suggest that inclusiveness reduces the level of identification. However, the observed patterns of identification were more complex than inclusiveness per se can account for. Borrowing from the common ingroup-identity model, functional and socialization models of identity formation, and a model of politicized collective identity we formulated hypotheses about patterns of identification that were to be expected. On the whole our findings supported our theoretical reasoning. Galician farmers appear to identify much less with farmers in their country and Europe than Dutch farmers do. Inclusiveness of identification appears to be linked to experience with national and supranational political institutions. More political knowledge and involvement appear to generate more inclusive patterns of identification. Among Galician farmers evaluation of the agricultural policy of the European Union is negatively related to identification with farmers in Europe, among Dutch farmers the two are positively related. Finally, more inclusive identities seem to be more politicized. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Whether they like it or not, farmers in The Netherlands and Spain are part of the same supranational political structure—the European Union (EU). Yet, although this polity defines their existence to a large extent, we witness relatively little collective political activity by farmers at the European level (Imig & Tarrow, 2001). Not because farmers in Europe do not share any interests; shared interests abound, but— we propose—because they lack the collective identity needed for such activity. Indeed, farmers within the EU act more often to protect national or regional interests against those of farmers from other European countries than to defend common interest at the European level (Bush & Simi, 2001). Dynamics of social identification can possibly account for the situation. A farmer in Europe may identify with the farmers in his community; alternatively he may identify with the farmers in his country, and he may also identify with the farmers in the EU. Indeed, farmers in the EU live in a Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 2 December 2003 *Correspondence to: Dr B. Klandermans, Faculty of Social Sciences, Free University, De Boelelaan 1081, NL-1081, HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected] multi-layered polity where agricultural policy may make any of those collective identities salient at some point in time. If the national government imposes nationwide some regulation on farmers, the farmers in the country become the salient category. If on the other hand, the community requires that the local farmers apply some environmental measures the farmers in the community become the salient category. If, finally, the EU imposes some ruling on the agricultural sector in Europe, farmers in Europe become the salient category. If, on the other hand, some policy endangers the local community as a whole being a farmer may lose its salience for some longer or shorter period. In this study we explore to what extent farmers in The Netherlands and Galicia (the most northern province of Spain) identify with farmers in their community, their country, and Europe. We will try to understand the antecedents of such differences in inclusiveness of identification. NESTED IDENTITIES AND IDENTITY POLITICS Simon (1999) characterizes identities as places in society. Some of those places we share with relatively few people, like members of our family; others are far more inclusive, like citizens of our country. Many places overlap, such as students at Free University Amsterdam and citizens of Amsterdam. Others are mutually exclusive such as male and female. Again other places are nested, such as inhabitants of Amsterdam and inhabitants of The Netherlands. In this paper we are interested in the latter—nested categories. The question that occupies us here is, why do some people identify with the more inclusive levels of a set of nested categories while others do not? The answer to this question is not only interesting for scientific reasons, but may have important social and political implications. We began our paper pointing to the scarcity of collective political activity aimed at the EU by European farmers and suggested that lack of identification with farmers in Europe is among the reasons why such political activity is rare. Identification with the more inclusive category of European farmers, we suggested, is needed to engage in collective action at the corresponding level. Indeed, the senior author has argued elsewhere (Simon & Klandermans, 2001) that in the process of politicization collective identity tends to become more inclusive, because people try to mobilize support from third parties, a larger community, or the general public. On the other hand, political common sense makes authorities belief that regional or ethnic identity (or more generally subgroup identities) and national identity are mutually exclusive (M. B. Brewer & R. Herrmann, paper presented at the European Science Foundation Workshop, Menaggio, Italy, 2002). Throughout history governments in fear of intergroup hostility and engaged in nation building have tried to foster national identity and to suppress any expression of subgroup identities. For instance, in Franco’s Spain every sign of regional identification was severely suppressed (Johnston, 1991). In a similar vein, protest groups are easily blamed for being disloyal, unpatriotic and forsaking the national identity, as the fate of many protest movements on the African continent and the peace movements in the United States and Europe during the Cold War showed. Ironically, such suppression tends to reinforce the very identity it attempts to suppress. Finally, social psychological literature suggests that identification with a more inclusive category prevents the occurrence of intergroup conflict (see Brown, 2000; Gaertner et al., 2000; Huo, Smith, Tyler, & Lind, 1996 for overviews). Gaertner et al.’s review of the extensive work on the common ingroup identity model evidences that intergroup bias and conflict can be reduced by factors that transform participants’ representation of memberships from two to one more inclusive group. The work on dual identity that Brown and Huo et al. review distinguishes nested identities into subordinated and superordinated identities and shows that the two are far from mutually exclusive. Dual identity (that is a combination of a suband superordinate identity) contributes to the stability of an organization or a political system, these authors conclude. Indeed, intergroup hostility seems to 280 Bert Klandermans et al. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 279–295 (2004) decline if people are allowed to nourish both suband superordinate identities. Moreover, a sufficiently high level of superordinate identification makes it possible for authorities to maintain cohesion within an ethnically diverse community. But superordinate identity seems to have this effect only if people can maintain their subgroup identity as well. All this suggests that inclusiveness of identification makes a real difference, be it in terms of intergroup conflict, processes of nation building, collective political action, political stability, or otherwise. Hence, the question of what makes people identify at a more or less inclusive level has a significant bearing. INCLUSIVENESS OF IDENTIFICATION Inclusiveness per se has been proposed as a factor influencing the dynamics of identification: Identification will be stronger in more inclusive groups (Mullen, Brown, & Smith, 1992). Translated to our setting this would mean that we were to find the highest levels of identification at the community level, intermediate identification at the national level, and the weakest identification at the European level. However, according to social categorization theory (Turner, 1999) a stable linear relationship between inclusiveness and identification is not very likely, as the theory holds that the relevance of a certain category depends on the social context. Similarly, Brewer and Silver (2000) suggest that size is not the only factor that influences identification. Inclusive categories, these authors hold satisfy the need for inclusion, but activate the need for differentiation. Shared distinctiveness, they argue, defines the optimum and is the group property that generates high levels of identification. ‘Social identification will be highest for those groups that make members feel they are valued and representative members of an exclusive group.’ (2000, p. 156). To illustrate the point, they present results from a study among students of Ohio State University (OSU) on the strength of identification with Americans, students from OSU and members of a subgroup that a student had personally identified (Brewer & Silver, 2000). Identification appears to be strongest with the most inclusive group namely the subgroup. However, second were not OSU students the next in terms of inclusiveness, but the more inclusive but more meaningful category of Americans. Thus not only size, but also type of group determines strength of identification. But there is more. M. B. Brewer and R. Herrmann (paper presented at the European Science Foundation Workshop, Menaggio, Italy, 2002) distinguish functional, socialization and persuasion models of identity formation and change as they conceptualize identity formation and change in relationship to national and supranational institutional structures. Functional models refer to differences (changes) in the political environment. Identities form and change depending on the structural relations between regional and national politics and between national and supranational politics (see also Huici et al., 1997). The socialization models concern differences (changes) in personal experiences. Socialization models allow for the impact of different experiences both quantitatively—how much experience—and qualitatively—what kind of experiences. Factors such as education, knowledge of the institutions, and the salience of the institutions in someone’s personal life influence the formation of identity. The persuasion models refer to differences (changes) in social communication as a mechanism of identity formation and change. These models take into account the direct role that institutions play in creating identities. The authors suggest that the three models all contribute to the explanation of identity formation and change. Finally, Simon and Klandermans (2001) hypothesize a link between inclusiveness of identification and the politicization of collective identity. If collective identity politicizes, these authors reason, people come to define identity at a higher level of inclusiveness. Politicization of collective identity Inclusiveness of identification 281 Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 279–295 (2004) unfolds as a sequence of politicizing events which gradually transform the group’s relationship to its social environment. In the course of the process of politicization the group seeks to win the support of third parties or the general public. As a consequence, group members begin to stress their identity as a member of society at large. It is by virtue of their membership in this more inclusive community that they are entitled to societal support for their claims. INCLUSIVENESS OF IDENTIFICATION AMONG FARMERS IN GALICIA AND THE NETHERLANDS In this paper we are interested in differences in identification among farmers in The Netherlands and Galicia. Both share an identity with farmers in Europe, farmers in their country, and farmers in their community. We hold that farmers need not identify with farmers at all three levels of inclusiveness, but that they may. Thus, our first research question concerns the actual occurrence of identification at these three levels of inclusiveness. If level of inclusiveness were the only factor in play one would predict a simple linear relationship between identity strength and level of inclusiveness—strongest identification with farmers in one’s community and weakest with farmers in Europe. There are, however, as discussed in the previous section, other factors than inclusiveness that supposedly produce more complicated patterns of identification. If—following M. B. Brewer and R. Herrmann (paper presented at the European Science Foundation Workshop, Menaggio, Italy, 2002)—we look at the functional relationships between regional, national and European institutions we observe significant differences between the two countries. As for region and nation, Galicia is one of the autonomous provinces in Spain and there has always been tension between the province and the nation state. Vis á vis the state provinces in Spain are each others competitors rather than companions. Nothing similar exists in The Netherlands—no autonomous provinces, no tension between provinces and the state, and no competition between provinces. At the level of the EU, farmers in different countries of the Union tend to see each other as competitors rather than companions (Bush & Simi, 2001). On these grounds and following Brewer and Herrmann one would expect national identification in Galicia to be lower than in The Netherlands and European identification to be lower than national identification in both countries. Socialization models presume different experiences with the EU among our respondents and sure enough the experiences of farmers in the two parts of Europe have been very different during the past decades. Spain entered the Union decades later than The Netherlands and therefore, simply in terms of duration the experience of the two groups of farmers with the EU differed. But qualitatively the experiences during the last two decades in the two regions have been very different as well. Whereas two decades ago Dutch agriculture had already gone through most of the process of modernization encouraged by the EU, agriculture in Galicia still stood at the beginning of that process. At the time of our fieldwork farming in Galicia was facing a process of rationalization that Dutch farming had already left behind. Thus, agriculture in Galicia lacked most of the professionalization that characterized farming in The Netherlands. As professionalization was accompanied by the strengthening of farmers organizations, a significant difference between the two countries could be observed—few farmers in Galicia were member of farmers organizations versus almost every farmer in The Netherlands. Moreover, the EU was evaluated much more positive in The Netherlands than in Spain, also among our respondents as we will see. On the whole Dutch farmers have benefited from the EU more than their Spanish colleagues and certainly their Galician colleagues. In sum, Dutch farmers are socialized more into the EU than their Galician counterparts and in a more positive way. As a consequence, we expect to find in The Netherlands a stronger identification with European farmers 282 Bert Klandermans et al. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 34, 279–295 (2004) than in Galicia. At the same time, because farming in Galicia is less organized as a profession we expect less group identification in Galicia altogether as professional organizations contribute to the identity of a group. Thus far, we have discussed inclusiveness of identification in terms of a single identity, but we are also interested in the occurrence of dual identity (Gonzalez & Brown, 2003). In fact, we prefer to use the concept of multiple identity, because we are not only interested in the combination of suband superordinated identity, but in the combination of the three levels included in our research. To what extent do multiple identities exist in the two countries and which factors make their occurrence more likely? In the introduction we discussed that political common sense tends to hold that nested identities are mutual exclusive, but that social psychological literature suggests the contrary. Indeed, M. B. Brewer and R. Herrmann (paper presented at the European Science Foundation Workshop, Menaggio, Italy, 2002) refer to research that has shown that people who identify strongly with local communities also identify strongly with nations and with Europe. In our own research in South Africa we found the same with regard to various forms of subgroup identity and national identity and concluded that indeed, a strong national identity seemed to presuppose a strong subgroup identity (Klandermans, Roefs, & Olivier, 2001). All this suggests that superordinate identification presupposes subordinate identification. Accordingly, we hypothesize that we will find a strong identification with farmers in the community among farmers who display a strong identification with farmers in the country and a strong identification at both the community and national level among farmers who display a strong identification with farmers in Europe. Finally, we want to test Simon and Klandermans’ (2001) hypothesis that identification with a more inclusive social entity reflects politicization of collective identity. The reasoning we developed in the previous sections can be summarized in the following hypotheses: 1. We expect the following differences in identification patterns between the two regions: more farmers who display lack of identification with other farmers in Galicia than in The Netherlands; relatively strong identification with farmers in the community in both regions; stronger identification with farmers in the country in The Netherlands than in Galicia; relatively weak identification with farmers in Europe in both regions; weaker identification with farmers in Europe in Galicia than in The Netherlands. 2. We expect to find a cumulative pattern of identification: farmers who identify at the European level, identify also at the national level, and farmers who identify at the national level identify also at the local level. 3. Farmers who have more experience and more positive experience with national or supranational political institutions have higher levels of identification at the corresponding level of inclusiveness. 4. Farmers with a more inclusive pattern of identification display more signs of politicization.