The Upside of Nationalism, with Aram Hur

Scope Conditions Podcast

In this episode, we talk with Dr. Aram Hur, an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, about her book project Narratives of Duty: How National Stories Shape Civic Duty in Asia.
Narratives of Duty is a study about the social good that, under the right conditions, can emerge from nationalism. We often think about nationalism today as an exclusionary and pernicious force in politics -- as, for instance, a driver of anti-immigrant sentiment and of conflict between groups or states. Hur’s project examines a potential “upside” to nationalism: the role that nationalism can play in creating a sense of citizen duty and, in turn, in inducing people to contribute to collective social goods. She examines how nationalism can motivate citizens to take costly action in support of the state, such as volunteering to serve in the army, paying their taxes, or contributing to a fiscal rescue during a financial crisis.
To be clear, Hur does not argue that nationalism always and everywhere generates a willingness to contribute to the common good. Rather, she is interested in understanding the conditions under which it does so. She contends that whether nationalism boosts civic duty depends, in particular, on the relationship between national identities and states: in particular, on whether or not national groups see the state as representing their nation.
Hur is especially interested in what nationalism can do for democracies. Unlike autocracies, which can readily turn to hard-edged forms of coercion, democracies rely heavily on voluntary compliance, making a sense of civic duty an especially valuable source of resilience.
In our conversation with Hur, we trace out the logic of her argument, think through its implications for democratic stability, and talk through the diverse range of research designs that the project brings together. Centered on a comparison between South Korea and Taiwan, the study combines evidence from in-depth qualitative interviews, field and survey experiments, and observational survey data, including an extension to the settings of eastern and western Germany. We also discuss what Hur’s argument can tell us about South Korea’s success in combating COVID-19, as well as how the country’s tight nation-state linkage creates new challenges in an era of falling fertility and increasing immigration.
You can find references to scholarly work discussed in the episode on our website, here.