Scandinavian Neighbours with Different Character? Attitudes Toward Immigrants and National Identity in Norway and Sweden

Abstract

This article takes up a theme of growing importance in the European and Scandinavian context, namely national sentiments and reactions toward new immigrants. More specifically, I analyse possible links between aspects of national identity and fear of foreigners - or xenophobia - in Norway and Sweden. Such ideas involve hypotheses at different levels and imply a step-by-step approach, analytically and empirically. It is argued that the concept of national identity could be specified within at least two dimensions: national chauvinism and system legitimacy, and it is further hypothesized that these factors affect xenophobia in a nuanced manner. The empirical analyses build and test a proper measurement model for the three concepts (chauvinism, legitimacy and xenophobia), later developed into a complex causal model. These analyses rely on recent advances in structural equation modelling (SEM) for the treatment of ordinal data and the handling of different covariance as well as mean structures. Data for Norway and Sweden come from the new national identity module collected in 1995 by ISSP. Results from various LISREL analyses support the crucial notion of a common measurement model for the two samples, making comparisons within and between countries more meaningful than otherwise. Findings demonstrate similar attitude structures for Norwegians and Swedes. Furthermore, the extended causal analysis shows that chauvinism and legitimacy clearly affect xenophobia on the individual level, partly also explaining national differences. However, even when differences of such sentiments are taken into account Norwegians still stand out as the more xenophobic, thus pointing toward the need for supplementary interpretations.