Nationalism and Socialist Ideology: The Case of Yugoslavia*
by
Bojan Todosijević
Abstract
In the Western countries, nationalism and ethnocentrism are customarily associated with
conservatism and the political Right. Practices of post-communist elites throughout the former
socialist block suggest that leftist ideological rhetoric can be successfully combined with
nationalism and ethnocentrism. This paper analyzes the relationships between ethno-nationalist
attitudes and attitudes representing some of the core dimensions of the socialist ideology, on the
basis of a survey conducted in Yugoslavia in 1995. The sample of approximately 700
Yugoslavian respondents answered the questionnaire containing SOCID (socialist ideology) and
ETNA60 (ethno-nationalism) scales. Both scales are factor analyzed, resulting in 5 and 4 factors
respectively. Significant relationships were determined between the two sets of attitudes.
Exclusive nationalist attitudes are more related to militarist and dogmatic aspects of socialist
ideology, while patriotic attitudes are more related to collectivism. The relationships are not
affected by most socio-demographic variables. However, authoritarianism and respondents’
ethnic background influence the examined relationships.
KEY WORDS: nationalism, socialism, attitudes, ideology, authoritarianism, factor analysis.
Introduction
Optimistic hopes for a 'better' and more tolerant world, raised by the fall of the Berlin wall, more
than a decade after the event, seem to be somewhat disappointed. Regardless the non-violent way
socialist regimes were changed in most of the countries in the region (the "velvet" revolution),
and regardless the success (or "successes") of the first steps towards "Westernization", much of
the former socialist block has not seen the expected peace and affluence. Among other
difficulties, the 1990's were marked by the general rise of nationalism and often violent ethnic
conflicts.
While many have found this development surprising, it is worth remembering that in fact
nationalism played a very important, even crucial, role in the collapse of multiethnic socialist
states, such as the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia. Thus, it could be argued that nationalism brought
socialist systems to their end.
*
To appear in Nationalism Studies Yearbook, CEU, Budapest.
1
The connection between nationalism and anti-socialism is not surprising, given that one
of the defining elements of socialist ideology was the 'proletarian internationalism' ('proletarians
do not have a homeland'). In the Western context, whether in theoretical treatises of modern
ideologies or in empirical research, nationalism is seen as part of the right-wing ideology. More
intriguing is quick adoption of the nationalist ideology by former socialist and communist leaders
and their supporters. In many cases, notably Yugoslavia, the socialist rhetoric was updated with
nationalist themes, while the actors by and large remained the same. Nationalism has proved to
be a rather flexible and adaptable ideology, fitting equally well into both 'left-wing' and 'rightwing' post-communist contexts. Thus, for example, the heirs of Hungarian communists have
remained among the less nationalist Hungarian parties, while Milošević's Socialist Party of
Serbia has become the champion of Serbian nationalism.
The objective of this paper is to examine relationships between the aspects of socialist
ideology and national attitudes in Yugoslavia/Serbia on the mass level. The findings offer some
elements for the explanation for socialist-nationalist leaders' extended popular support. The
ethnic heterogeneity of the sample, consisting of Serbs, ethnic Hungarians and declared
Yugoslavs1, provides grounds for examining whether the relationships between nationalism and
ideology are stable, or do they correlate with the particular group's social and political position.
The analysis is based on a the survey conducted in 1995 in Subotica, Yugoslavia, on a
sample of approximately 600 high-school students.2 Both national attitudes and socialist
ideology are understood as sets of more or less interrelated attitudes, and therefore suitable for
questionnaire examination. Socialist ideology is operationalized by the 41-item SOCID scale.
The scale contains items covering various aspects of socialist ideology: attitudes towards staterun economy, the role of the workers, egalitarianism, collectivism, attitudes towards the West,
etc. Nationalist attitudes are operationalized by ETNA60 scale, measuring four dimensions:
patriotism, ethnocentrism, nationalism, and the attitude towards minorities' rights.
Political Ideologies and national attitudes
Patriotism, nationalism and ethnocentrism are overlapping concepts, defined in various
ways, and often used interchangeably. An ability to make distinction between 'us and them', and
consequent discriminative treatment, is common for the three concepts. Differences are in the
definition of the in-group (homeland, nation, ‘ethnic’ group), and in the degree of the negative
1
Declared Yugoslavs are usually those originating from mixed marriages. Subotica and Vojvodina in general have
been characterized by high inter-ethnic marriage rate, much higher than in ethnically mixed areas of Bosnia or
Croatia (Botev, 1994). Thus, the ethnic groups lived together rather than besides each other.
2
The data are generously made available for analysis by the Center for Social Research, Subotica.
2
treatment of the out-groups. They could be ordered along the continuum of negative sentiments
towards outgroups. Patriotism does not necessarily include negative attitude toward others, only
attachment to one's homeland. Nationalism is at least potentially negatively oriented toward
others, depending on a particular context. Ethnocentrism implies belief in the superiority of one's
own ethnic group, and animosity towards others.3
These three concepts are conceived here as relatively distinct dimensions of ethnic or
national attitudes. They are relevant for the present study because factor analysis of the applied
ETNA60 scale resulted in four distinctive but related dimensions, three of which are patriotism,
nationalism and ethnocentrism.
The relationship of national attitudes to other socio-political attitudes, or ideology, can be
best seen within the field of studies of the structure of social attitudes. Most of these studies have
been conducted in the Anglophone countries, so the results represent the position of national
attitudes within the ideological space of the particular political-cultural context.
Pioneers in the field, such as Thurstone (1934) and Ferguson (1939, 1942, 1973), found
that nationalism and patriotism in the USA were closely related to the conservative political
views, and especially anti-Communist orientation.
Eysenck (1954, 1971, 1975) obtained similar results in the UK. In his two-dimensional
theory of the structure of social attitudes, ethnocentrism and nationalist patriotism, together with
positive evaluation of religion, free trade, harsh treatment of criminals, are described as attitudes
specific for those high in Conservatism and Tough-mindedness (Eysenck, 1954). A number of
authors obtained results supportive for the Eysenck's theory in different countries (Bruni &
Eysenck, 1976; Hewitt et al. 1977; Singh, 1977, Smithers et al. 1978). In Eysenck's view, one's
position on the conservative-radical (R) dimension is determined by socialization, while
Tender/tough-mindedness (T dimension) is a reflection of personality, primarily of psychoticism.
Therefore, co-variation of conservatism and ethnocentrism can be attributed to both social and
psychological, even biological, factors (Eysenck, 1975).
Is Wilson's theory (e.g., 1973a, Wilson & Patterson, 1968, 1970; Ortet et al. 1990; Truett,
1993; Riemann et al. 1993), socio-political attitudes are structured unidimensionally, along one
single dimension of conservatism. It has four interrelated components: militarism, antihedonism,
ethnocentrism, and punitiveness, together building the cluster of the conservative ideology (e.g.,
Wilson & Patterson, 1970). Ethnocentrism (which incorporates nationalism) is found to be a
constituting element of the conservative ideology.
3
Scheepers et al. (1989), for example, defined ethnocentrism quite abstractly, as an attitude when both
"unfavorable attitudes towards outgroups and favorable attitude towards the ingroup" are present (p.289).
3
In Wilson’s view, conservatism is "a reflection of a generalized fear of uncertainty,
whether stimulus uncertainty (complexity, ambiguity, novelty, change, etc., as states of the
physical and social environment) or response uncertainty (freedom of choice, need conflict, etc.,
originating from within the individual)” (Wilson, 1973b, p. 187). In different contexts the fear of
uncertainty could be expressed in different ways. Psychological uncertainty in former socialist
countries induced by the social changes at the beginning of the 1990's, and consequent ‘socialist
conservatism’ (in the sense of conserving the past), could be expressed through manifestly
different attitudes but still be based on the same underlying psychological processes. For
example, it could be hypothesized that instead of religious sub-dimension, ‘conservatism’ in
Yugoslavia contains adherence to the authoritarian socialist ideology and nationalist attitudes.
In the third major theory of the structure of social attitudes, Kerlinger's dualistic theory
(1972, 1984; Kerlinger et al. 1976), conservatism and radicalism (or liberalism) are not the
opposite extremes of one dimension - they are two orthogonal, independent dimensions. Though
less clearly than in the previous models, in Kerlinger’s theory nationalism and ethnocentrism are
also components of the conservative ideology (cf., Marjoribanks and Josefowitz, 1975).
Besides these studies, concerned with the structure of general social attitudes, there are
numerous studies with different objectives, indicating that nationalism and various aspects of
conservative attitudes are correlated (e.g., Eisenman & Sirgo, 1993; Sidanius and Pratto, 1993).
Massive research in the tradition of The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno et al., 1950,
Altemeyer, 1981, 1988) leaves little doubt that in the North American and West-European
context ethnocentric and nationalist attitudes are features of the political Right, and that their
connection is mediated by the authoritarian personality structure. Thus, the evidence from
different research traditions suggests that the relationship between nationalism and ideology is
fairly well established, i.e., that in various Western samples nationalism is an integral part of the
conservative, right-wing ideological orientation.
Previous research is rather weak guidance as to what to expect in the post-Communist
context, and in Yugoslavia/Serbia especially. There are indicators that the relationship between
national attitudes and ideology could be mediated by different traits. It has been found that
authoritarianism is related to both ethnocentric nationalism (Todosijević, 1999a), and to
dogmatic aspects of socialist ideology (Todosijević, 1999b). However, also in Yugoslavia,
aggressiveness as a ‘pure’ personality trait was found to correlate with nationalist and
particularly ethnocentric attitudes (but not patriotic) (Todosijević, 1995).
In the Serbian context, nationalism of others has been perceived as guilty of destroying
the idealized socialism of the Tito’s time. Thus, Serbian nationalism, self-perceived as (justified)
reaction to other nationalisms, could be connected with the ‘socialist conservatism’ both as a
reflection of the strategies of the ruling political elite, and through the psychological
4
mechanisms, whether the Wilsonian fear of uncertainty, authoritarianism, or identification with
the ingroup.
Putting the presented pieces of information in a single picture, it seems that nationalists
tend to come from more fearful, insecure, and more aggressive parts of population. On the one
side, identification with the in-group (nation) can help in overcoming the insecurity, while on the
other side, nationalism can provide legitimate way for expressing aggressiveness. Thus, the
overarching hypothesis is that nationalism should be related with attitudes, or ideologies, which
serve similar needs.4 Ideology which opposes to changes would appeal to the feelings of fear and
insecurity, while the ideology providing legitimate objects of aggression ('enemies' of the nation,
or country) would appeal to aggressiveness. The reviewed studies show that in western countries
conservative ideology fits similar needs as nationalism (opposition to social change, communists
as enemies). In Yugoslavia (Serbia) in 1995 it should be the orthodox socialist dogmatism.5
RESEARCH PROBLEM AND HYPOTHESES
Although socialist ideology, normatively, implies internationalist orientation, we have
witnessed the convergence of socialist and nationalist ideologies in many of the former socialist
countries. The task of this research is to explore the structure of relationships between national
and socialist attitudes on the sample of high school students from Subotica, Yugoslavia.
Relying on the research emphasizing the importance of the 'fear of uncertainty', repressed
aggressiveness, authoritarianism, as the psychological basis for the convergence of conservative
political attitudes (i.e., opposition to social change) and exclusive identification with one's ingroup (nation), it is expected that in Yugoslavia, nationalism and ethnocentrism will be related to
orthodox, dogmatic version of the socialist ideology, but not to its humane, egalitarian aspects.
Parallel to the psychological basis for the expected convergence of nationalist and
dogmatic socialist views there is also a political one. Namely, behavior of the political elites
leads to the same expectation, since the principal political actors of the time in Yugoslavia were
both former communist leaders (i.e., Milošević and his Socialist Party of Serbia) and leading
nationalists.6
4
The hypothesis very much in the psychoanalytic tradition of Adorno et al. (1950).
5
Of course, the ideological correlates of nationalism are context-dependent, and often multiple, and quickly
changeable. For example, in Serbia, there are nationalists who believe in communism, and also nationalists who are
for the restoration of the monarchy, but nationalist in Croatia are uniformly anti-Communist.
6
The difficulty with this argument is that the ‘extreme’ leftists, i.e., Milošević’s wife’s party JUL, rarely used
nationalist rhetoric, quite the opposite, and that there have existed also radically anti-Communist Serbian
nationalists. Thus, it could be expected that psychological factors would be more decisive.
5
METHOD
Survey and the Sample
The survey was conducted in the Spring of 1995, in Subotica, Yugoslavia. Respondents
were an ad hoc sample of approximately 600 secondary school students from various schools
from Subotica. The age of respondents was between 17 and 19. The questionnaire, consisting of
several attitude scales, was administered during regular classes, in group setting, and its filling
lasted approximately 40 minutes. Full anonymity of respondents was secured. Prior to
distributing questionnaires, respondents were informed about the general aim of the survey.
Individuals responsible for questionnaire administration were usually teachers of sociology or
psychology in the respondents' schools.
According to gender, the sample is well balanced. There are 344 male (49.2%) and 341
female respondents. 14 respondents did not indicate gender. Frequencies of the nationalities of
respondents (see Appendix Table A) do not exactly match the proportions in the community of
Subotica, but they resemble the actual proportions in secondary schools of Subotica.
Measures
Attitudes towards socialist ideology are operationalized by the 41-item SOCID scale. The
scale covers various aspects of the Yugoslav variety of the socialist ideology: egalitarianism,
collectivism, Yugoslav army, state, political opposition, state economy, 'Western world', religion,
etc. Sample item: Working class is the most advanced social force.
Nationalist/ethnocentric attitudes are operationalized by the 60-item ETNA scale. Details
of factor analysis of the ETNA60 scale are reported in Todosijević (1995), and here will be
summarized only the most important information. According to the Scree-test (Cattell, 1966),
extracted were four factors accounting for 43.1% of the total variance. The factors were labeled
as 1) Patriotism, 2) Minorities' rights, 3) Ethnocentrism and 4) Hegemonist Nationalism.
Patriotism included items referring to positive attachment towards one's ethnic group, but
without negative attitude towards others. Minorities' rights factor referred to the right for
separation of national minorities, and the degree of freedom and autonomy which ethnic
minorities should be allowed. This factor was the most discriminative for Serbian and Hungarian
sub-samples, the latter having higher average score. Ethnocentrism was defined as the exclusive
attachment to one's own ethnic group, acceptance of contacts only with members of one's own
ethnic group, and negative, hostile attitudes towards others. Hungarians and Serbs scored
6
similarly high on this factor, while declared Yugoslavs and Bunjevci7 obtained low scores.
Nationalism was defined by items reflecting the Serbian nationalist propaganda of the time. It
included items like the request for ethnically homogeneous state, distrust of other nations, belief
in the world-wide conspiracy against one's nation. Serbian sub-sample had high scores on this
factor.8
Items in the ETNA60 scale were devised for capturing primarily Serbian national
attitudes, hence certain bias has to be expected in the obtained results. But, on the other hand, no
ethnic group is explicitly named in any of the items, so the scale is in general terms applicable
across different groups. For example, agreement with the item: My nation is culturally superior
over the nations we are in direct contact with, is equally ethnocentric regardless of whether one
is a Hungarian or a Serb. But, national background makes difference in case of a Nationalism
factor item such as My nation has many enemies.
Items from both scales were presented in Likert format, where answers were given by
circling one of four degrees of dis/agreement with each item (1 - strongly disagree, 2 - disagree, 3
- agree and 4 - strongly agree).
RESULTS
Factor analysis of the SOCID scale
The analysis starts with factor analysis of the SOCID scale. It is followed by the analysis
of intercorrelations between factors of socialist ideology and nationalism factors.
According to the Scree-test, five ideological factors are extracted, accounting for 42.9%
of the total scale variance. Initial factor extraction was followed by Oblimin rotation. Only four
factors will be shown and interpreted, since the content of one of the factors does not belong to
the ‘space’ of the socialist ideology dimensions.9 Pattern matrix of the first factor is given in the
Table 1.
Table 1 Socialist Ideology Factor 1: Socialist Egalitarianism
Items
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7
Bunjevci and Croats from the region are basically the same ethnic group. They are both descents of a small group
of Slav Catholics settled in the area in the second half of the 17th century. But, declaration as a Bunjevac reflects
an emphasis on the ethnic uniqueness in relation both to Serbs and to Croats from Croatia.
8
Reliability coefficients for the factors of Patriotism, Minorities' rights, Ethnocentrism and Nationalism (by simple
summation) are: .93, .61, .90, and .88, respectively. (The Minorities' rights factor had only 4 items).
9
This factor was interpreted as Conformism, but instead of items probing ideological orientations it contained selfdescriptive items such as those often found in standard personality questionnaires.
7
22 All workers ought to have equal wages because they all have equal needs.
.70
23 It is sure that there would be much less conflicts in our society if everybody would have
equal economic standard, no mater how low.
.65
24 Our society should prevent creation of any social elites.
.62
26 It is a shame for our society that some people have two cars and some not even one.
.62
32 A worker in direct production is really more important than an engineer.
.50
25 All humans have more or less equal abilities.
.49
33 Workers, not directors, owners, or who knows what kind of managers, should make
decisions about all important problems at their work-place.
.49
34 It is better for workers to work in state enterprises, because in the private ones, owners
have only the aim of exploiting them.
.41
36 Working class is the most advanced social force.
.40
35 Great majority of enterprises should be in state ownership because it is the only guarantee
that the workers would have secured existence.
.39
Note: Items with loading above .35 presented.
Items in this factor represent egalitarian views (more specifically egalitarianism-of-outcome),
preference for the state-run over private economy, and an emphasis on the importance of workers
in immediate production. Items with lower loading express general positive evaluation of the
socialist system. Henceforth, the interpretation of the factor seems quite straightforward - as a
general socialist-egalitarian dimension. Consequently, factor is labeled as Socialist
egalitarianism. On this factor, females have slightly higher average scores than males (t=-2.81,
p<.01), and Bunjevci higher than Hungarians (p<.01).
Second factor (Table 2) consists of two groups of items. One expressing the positive
evaluation of the army (Yugoslavian army), and the other expressing negative attitudes towards
the 'Western world'.
Table 2 Socialist Ideology Factor 2: Militarism (with elements of socialist dogmatism)
Items
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2 Our society should provide much more money for the modernization of our army and for
the production of weapons.
.78
3 Strong, disciplined, well trained and equipped army is the only guarantee that nobody
will dare to attack us.
.71
6 I enjoy seeing young soldiers marching, armed, in war uniforms and helmets on their
heads.
.68
5 Everybody should have personal weapon.
.66
4 Serving in the army is the greatest honor and pride for a young man.
.60
38 Western world is full of injustice, moral decadence, and crime.
.51
37 Western world and its capital does not mean anything good to our people except to
exploit it.
.51
1 Usually, the war is the best occasion for a man to show his courage and strength.
.46
8
16 In case of greater social disorders, the army is the only social force which can make order
in the country.
.45
Note: Items with loading above .35 presented.
There is a number of reasons for such grouping of items. Part of the official ideology in socialist
Yugoslavia was the cult of the JNA (Yugoslav Peoples' Army), and its glorification as the bearer
of ‘historic libertarian tradition of Yugoslav peoples'. Army has been strictly ideologized, and
was the bastion of more dogmatic, pro-Soviet and anti-Western ideologues. More importantly, at
the time of the survey the ‘West’ already had became the principal ‘national enemy’, and the
official media had been depicting the army as the main guardian against the 'Western
conspiracy'.10 This factor is interpreted as Militarism, but it should be remembered that it
contains a strong component of the socialist dogmatism. It resembles Wilson's factor of
militarism, though in his model it was defined as a sub-dimension of conservatism (Wilson &
Patterson, 1970).
Males obtained higher scores on this factor than females (t=5.91, p<.01). Highest average
scores had Serbs and Bunjevci, while the lowest had Hungarians and Croats. This is in line with
the interpretation that this factor largely reflects the Serbian nationalist propaganda. It is
interesting that Bunjevci, although of (disputably) Croat ethnic origin, are closer to Serbs than to
Croats and Hungarians.
The third factor is given in Table 3. In various formulations, the items express the
evaluation of the collectivity above the individual interests. The collective is seen as a value in
itself and as a source of security. This attitude was expected to be one of the crucial elements of
the socialist ideology. The factor is labeled as Collectivism.
Table 3 Socialist Ideology Factor 3: Collectivism
ItemsItems
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19 Individual should sacrifice his/her own interests and wishes for the benefit of the
collective.
.72
18 People work much better if they work for the collective than only for themselves.
.70
20 Collective goals should be the supreme values for the youth.
.66
17 Only if one belongs to the collective s/he can live a happy life.
.62
21 Security can be found only in following the rules and customs of the collective were one
belongs.
.60
Note: Items with loading above .35 presented.
10
Later events, however, showed that the guardian was not strong enough.
9
Fourth factor (Table 4) contains items concerning political liberties. One group of items refers to
the existence and functioning of political opposition, while the other to the role of the state. On
the one extreme are attitudes expressing democratic orientation - support for political pluralism,
functioning of political opposition, rejection of the omnipotence of the state, while on the other
side is glorification of the state and distrust in democracy. In other words, a dimension from
democratic to anti-democratic attitudes. Due to the negative sign of item loading this factor is
interpreted as democratic orientation. Higher the score - higher the disagreement with the antidemocratic statements.
Table 4 Socialist Ideology Factor 4: Democratic orientation
Items
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14 The police should prohibit all political demonstrations.
-.58
13 Every political activity of opposition parties should be stopped for they do not do
anything else except destroying the state system.
-.56
15 People should not be given too great political rights and liberties because they do not
know how to use them anyway.
-.54
7 State should be the one who will make all political and economical decisions in the name
of the people.
12 By introducing multi-party political system in our country, we gained nothing except
political chaos and disorder.
-.54
-.53
8 State authorities know the best what are the interests and needs of their citizens and what
is good for them.
-.51
9 State is the bearer of the spirit of the people, founded in language, customs and religion.
-.49
11 In many economical and social aspects, state ownership over the means of production is
much better than private.
-.40
Note: Items with loading above .35 presented.
Four interpretable and clearly defined factors extracted from the SOCID scale were interpreted:
1. Socialist egalitarianism, 2. Militarism, 3. Collectivism, and 4. Democratic orientation. It can be
rightly objected that these dimensions do not cover the totality of the socialist ideology. In
defense of the usefulness of these dimension it can be said that they represent some of the most
important aspects of the socialist ideology in general (egalitarianism, collectivism), and some
aspects relevant for its Yugoslavian version (militarism-dogmatism). Democratism seems to be a
more general feature of political attitudes, not necessarily connected with socialism.
Correlations between the four SOCID factors are given in the Appendix, Table B.
Significant but weak correlations suggest a loose convergence of these attitudes into a general
10
'socialist ideology' dimension. On the one side of this general dimension would be Democratism,
while on the other Militarism, Collectivism and Egalitarianism.11
NATIONALIST ATTITUDES AND SOCIALIST IDEOLOGY
Product-moment correlations between nationalism and ideology factors are shown in Table 5.
Egalitarianism is basically unrelated to any of the examined ethno-national attitudes, except
weakly to Patriotism (r=.08, p<.05). Since Egalitarianism represents a more humane component
of the socialist ideology, it is therefore related only to the national attitude that does not include
rejecting view of any outgroup, though it is not particularly favorable predisposition even for the
patriotic sentiments. Hence, the hypothesis that humane elements of the socialist ideology are not
related to ethnocentric - nationalist attitudes is supported.
Table 5 Correlations between socialist ideology and national attitudes factors
Patriotism
Minority Rights Ethnocentrism
Nationalism
Egalitarianism
.08*
Militarism
.39**
-.26**
.30**
.60**
Collectivism
.46**
.09*
.19**
.14**
Democratism
-.23**
-.12**
-.24**
Note: Significant coefficients printed; * p<.05
** p<.01, 2-tailed.
Militarism is the ideological factor which has the strongest correlations with nationalist
attitudes. It is highly correlated with Nationalism (r=.60, p<.01), moderately with Patriotism
(r=.39, p<.01), and somewhat less with Ethnocentrism (r=.30, p<.01) and Minorities' rights
factors (r=-.26, p<.01). This shows the convergence of the dogmatic socialist ideology, anti-West
attitudes and militarism, with national and ethnic intolerance. Thus, this dimension, which
represented the main cleavage between the political position-opposition elites in Yugoslavia
during the 1990’s, has had firm foundation at the level of the populace.
Collectivism is primarily related to Patriotism (r=.46, p<.01), and slightly also to
Ethnocentrism (r=.19, p<.01) and Nationalism (r=.14, p<.01). This is understandable, because
11
Factor analysis shows the structure of the investigated attitudes, i.e., which attitudes 'go together', pattern of their
relationships. It has nothing to do with the popularity of the attitudes. Most respondents in fact disagreed with the
majority of socialist-dogmatic, militarist, and antidemocratic attitudes. For example, 88.4% disagreed or strongly
disagreed with the item stating that 'war is the best chance for displaying courage'. Likewise, only 7.2% of
respondents strongly agreed that 'worker in immediate production is more important that an engineer', while about
80% disagreed that communism is morally superior to capitalism. On the other side, opinions about the
benevolence of the West (item 37, in SOCID Factor 2) were evenly divided: 48% agreed or strongly agreed with
the item saying that 'West wants only to exploit our people'. In general, respondents were predominantly critical of
socialist system, divided about egalitarianism, refused militarism, supported democratic attitudes, and were
skeptical about the West.
11
Patriotism implies belonging to a collective and seeing that collective as a value in itself, while
socialism also places the emphasis on the collectivity. Weaker correlation with Ethnocentrism
and Nationalism suggests that collectivism includes a degree of the negative attitude towards
those who do not belong to the same collectivity.
Democratic attitudes are negatively related to Patriotism (r=-.23, p<.01), Nationalism
(r=-.24, p<.01) and Ethnocentrism (r=-.12, p<.01). The correlations are in the expected direction.
Methods through which nationalist and patriotic ‘values’ have been promoted and realized in this
part of the world could hardly be called democratic. This finding also reflects the political
dynamics in Yugoslavia at the time. Democratic forces were largely defined by their rejection of
nationalism and very moderate, if any at all, patriotism.
The absence of correlation between the democratic orientation and the support for
minorities' rights is interesting, given the ‘democratic aura’ around advocates of the minorities
rights. One possible explanation is that neither those who are too passionate about autonomy for
minorities, not to mention separatism, could easily be labeled as democrats.
Control variables
A number of control variables are introduced, in order to test the robustness of the
coefficients, and for possible spurious relationships. Table 6 shows partial correlations between
ideology and nationalist factors, after introducing controls for several socio-demographic
variables: father and mother's educational level, religiosity12, and gender. It is obvious that
coefficients changed only marginally.
Table 6 Partial correlations between national attitudes and ideology factors, controlling for father's
and mothers educational level, religiosity, and gender.
Egalitarianism
Militarism
Collectivism
Democratism
.09*
.41**
.44**
-.24**
Minority rights
-.26**
.09*
Ethnocentrism
.29**
.15**
-.13**
.61**
.16**
-.25**
Patriotism
Nationalism
.12**
Note: Only significant coefficients printed; * p<.05
12
** p<.01
(2-tailed).
Degree of religiosity is measured by a single item-scale, from 1 (true believer) to 6 (not religious and against
religion).
12
Introducing control for authoritarianism is particularly interesting, partly for theoretical
reasons, and partly because authoritarianism in this sample is significantly correlated both with
the ideological dimensions and with national attitudes factors (Table 7).13
Table 7 Correlations between authoritarianism and factors of socialist ideology and national
attitudes
Authoritarianism
Authoritarianism
Egalitarianism
Militarism
Collectivism
Democratism
.30**
.46**
.35**
-.42**
Patriotism
Minority Rights
Ethnocentrism
Nationalism
.28**
.35**
.36**
Note: Only significant coefficients printed; * p<.05
** p<.01
(2-tailed).
It is obvious that the ideological dimensions are related to authoritarianism, especially
Militarism and democratic orientation (r=.46 and r=-.42 respectively, both p<.01) are
considerably overlapping with authoritarianism.14 National attitudes, except Minorities’ Rights,
are also positively correlated with authoritarianism, especially Patriotism and Nationalism (r=.36
and r=.35 respectively, both p<.01). Thus introducing the control for authoritarianism is
warranted.
Relationships between the ideological dimensions and national attitudes somewhat
changed after controlling for authoritarianism (Table 8). Moderate and weak correlations further
decreased (except between Militarism and Minorities' rights factors, which slightly increased),
while the two strongest zero-order correlations still remained of considerable magnitude
(Militarism and Nationalism changed from r=.60 to r=.53, and Collectivism and Patriotism
changed from r=.46 to r=.38).
Table 8 Partial correlations between national attitudes and ideology factors, controlling for
authoritarianism
Egalitarianism
Militarism
Collectivism
Democratism
Patriotism
.28**
.38**
-.08*
Minority rights
-.31**
.10*
13
Authoritarianism is operationalized as the first principal component from the 28-item authoritarianism scale,
higher score meaning higher authoritarianism. Details can be found in Todosijević, 1995.
14
Relationship between authoritarianism and socialist ideology dimensions is elaborated elsewhere (Todosijević,
1999b).
13
Ethnocentrism
-.08*
.22**
Nationalism
.09*
.53**
Note: Only significant coefficients printed; * p<.05;
-.10*
** p<.01 (2-tailed).
It is interesting to note that negative partial coefficient for Egalitarianism and Ethnocentrism
appeared. With authoritarianism partaken out, egalitarian orientation constituted a modest
negative predisposition for ethnocentric attitudes. The changes in general thus demonstrate that
the connection between socialist ideology dimensions and nationalist attitudes is to a moderate
degree mediated by authoritarianism, or that authoritarianism is an important factor underlying
convergence of the examined variables.
Stability of the coefficients after introduction of the control variables corroborates the
reliability of the determined relationships, particularly between Militarism and Nationalism, and
between Collectivism and Patriotism.
When correlations are calculated separately for three major ethnic subsamples (ethnic
Hungarians, Serbs, and declared Yugoslavs)15, the coefficients changed in magnitude, but it
seems that the pattern of the relationships by and large remained quite stable (Table 9).
In sub-samples of the Serbs and Yugoslavs, Patriotism is strongly correlated with
Militarism and Collectivism (.54 and .52 respectively for Serbs, and .49 and .55 for Yugoslavs),
while among the Hungarians the coefficients are considerably lower. This is the evidence of the
militarization and ‘collectivization‘ of patriotism among the Serbian youth, but it interesting that
declared Yugoslavs resemble Serbs in this regard.
Table 9 Correlations between socialist ideology and national attitudes factors in separate ethnic
subsamples
Patriotism
Hu
Ser
Min. Rights
Yu
Hu
Egalitarianism
.21**
Militarism
.22**
.54** .49**
Collectivism
.37**
.52** .55** .14*
Democratism
-.33**
-.14* -.36**
Ser
Yu
.14* .23**
Ethnocentrism
Hu
Ser
Yu
.15*
.15*
.18*
-.20**
Nationalism
Hu
Ser
Yu
.26**
.47** .28**
.46** .51** .51**
.26**
.21**
.27**
-.37**
-.31**
Note: Significant coefficients printed; * p<.05, ** p<.01, 2-tailed. Abbreviations: Hu - Hungarians, Ser-Serbs, Yu declared Yugoslavs.
15
Only these groups had sufficiently large number of respondents.
14
In sub-samples of Hungarians and Yugoslavs, democratic orientation is more negatively
related to Patriotism and Nationalism. It seems that it contradicts to Forbes' (1985) hypothesis
that minority nationalism is less antidemocratic in nature, unless we interpret the factors as
majority patriotism and majority nationalism.
In the Hungarian sample only, Egalitarianism is significantly although weakly correlated
to all national attitudes factors. Perhaps only those with strongly egalitarian views accepted
attitudes specific for another ethnic group. This is corroborated by the positive correlation
between Egalitarianism and Minority Rights factors among Serbs (r=-.20, p<.01): egalitarian
Serbs are likely to support the rights of the minorities.
Ethnocentrism is strongly correlated with Militarism among Serbs (r=.47, p<.01), while
the coefficient is lower among Yugoslavs (r=.28, p<.01) and especially Hungarians (r=.15,
p<.05). In addition, Ethnocentrism among Serbs is also related to Collectivism (r=.26, p<.01).
Nationalism factor, interestingly, is about equally correlated with Militarism in all three
groups, though somewhat stronger among Serbs and Yugoslavs (both coefficients are r=.51,
P<.01) than among Hungarians (r=.46, p<.01). Nationalist attitude was also accepted more
frequently by more collectivist and anti-democratic Hungarians and Yugoslavs, and egalitarian
Hungarians. It should be reiterated that these comparisons are somewhat invalidated by the bias
in-built into the content of the items in the national attitudes scale.
Discussion
Factor analysis of the applied scales showed that both socialist ideology and nationalist
attitudes are multidimensional constructs. Four dimensions of socialist ideology are described:
Egalitarianism, Militarism, Collectivism, and Democratism.
The obtained findings suggest the existence of significant relationships between
dimensions of the socialist ideology and ethnic/national attitudes. Two strongest connections are
between Patriotism and Collectivism (r=.46), and between Militarism and Nationalism factors
(r=.60). Thus, while patriotism seems to be more rooted in the identification with the ingroup or
the collective, nationalism seems to be more aggressive and militarist in nature. However,
patriotism, as defined here, has also a strong militarist component. Egalitarianism and
Democratism are less associated with the national attitudes. Democratism is in general opposed
to nationalist, patriotic and ethnocentric attitudes. Although democratism is not particularly
‘socialist’ aspect of ideology, egalitarianism is. Its lack of association with nationalist attitudes
confirmed the hypothesis that more humane aspects of socialist ideology are not related to
nationalist and ethnocentric attitudes.
15
The findings thus suggest that, among the measured ideological dimensions, Militarism
with the elements of socialist dogmatism and Collectivism are those ideological dimensions that
co-vary with nationalism, ethnocentrism and patriotism. It is more than obvious that the same
dimensions had been linked in the ideology of the then ruling political elite.
However, the results on the basis of the entire sample are only part of the story. Changes
of the relationships in different subsamples provide ground for speculations about the underlying
causal factors. Socio-political influences, such as political position of the group, the media,
behavior of political elites, central political cleavages, are obviously important. Their effect can
be seen, for example, in the higher correlation between militarism on the one side and patriotism,
nationalism and ethnocentrism on the other, in the Serbian sub-sample. The official media
created a picture of the world-wide conspiracy against Serbia, suggesting that the only option is
to fight back and protect the 'vital national interests'. Some of the important elements in this
image were the strength of the army, cult of the Serbs as 'invincible but just warriors' - clearly
aspects of the militarist dimension. Besides this aggressive component, at the same time more
subtly were cultivated feelings of insecurity, fear and distrust in surrounding nations and national
minorities. These factors are perhaps the most important reasons for the apparent 'militarization'
of the Serbian national attitudes. Militant nationalism and patriotism have little to do with the
abstractly defined socialist ideology, but they have much in common with the ideology cultivated
in the socialist Yugoslavia.
Ethnic Hungarians, as a national minority, hardly have had any social incentives to
connect militarism and hegemonist patriotism. Therefore, the corresponding coefficients are
lower among them. The minority-majority position of a group also explains the increased
negative correlation between democratic attitudes and patriotism and nationalism among the
Hungarians, and negative correlation between Democratism and Minority Rights among Serbs as
well.16
Psychological background of the obtained relationships is partly in respondents’ degree
of
authoritarianism,
thus
corroborating
previously
obtained
associations
between
authoritarianism and ethnocentrism (Todosijević, 1999a) and authoritarianism and dogmatic
aspects of socialist ideology (Todosijević, 1999b). When authoritarianism is parted out, the
correlation between ideology and national attitudes generally decreases, but not entirely. Hence,
it could be speculated that other psychological variables are relevant too. For example, the
connection of militarism and nationalism could be mediated by Eysenck's tough-mindedness
(Eysenck, 1975), or social aggressiveness (cf., Todosijević, 1995). While in the Western
16
Interestingly, among the Hungarians, support of minority rights is unrelated to pro-democratic orientation,
suggesting that the group’s socio-political position is a major determinant of specific national attitudes. Further
elaboration of this point would lead towards the group-conflict interpretation of ethnic relations (see Brown, 1995).
16
countries tough-mindedness joins conservatism and ethnocentrism, we observed that it can join
also the 'conservative socialism' with nationalism and ethnocentrism.
A further psychological hypothesis would concern the connection between patriotism and
collectivism. This seems to be more benevolent connection, perhaps based on the need to belong, to
identify with the collectivity.17
Various authors have described the double function of nationalism or ethnocentrism:
social integration, and individual psychological equilibrium (e.g., Dadrian, 1971, Rot 1989,
Scheepers et al. 1992). On the social level, ethnocentrism and/or nationalism have a role in
producing group identification, solidarity and homogeneity in relation to outgroups, and
maintenance of the social status quo in relation to ingroups. On the psychological level these
attitudes can have any of the functions described by Katz (1960): instrumental or utilitarian, egodefensive, value-expressive and cognitive. The present findings suggest that ideological
orientations perform similar functions as ethnic attitudes, and that their social and psychological
functions are responsible for their correlation. Covariance of patriotism and collectivism could be
manifestations of the need to belong and to identify with collectivity, and at the same time play
the socially-integrative role. Militarism and nationalism co-vary since they serve similar egodefensive function, and are rooted in individual level of social aggressiveness and
authoritarianism (Todosijević, 1995), but at the societal level they create social mobilization and
homogenization, without which nationalist political projects cannot succeed.
However, the psychological predispositions need to be actualized by external social and
political factors to develop as particular ideologies and national attitudes. Although both
nationalism and militarism are related to authoritarianism, controlling for authoritarianism did
not eliminate their interconnectedness. Thus, politics and society have to intervene in order to
advance from, in Lanternari’s (1980) words, the attitudinal/spontaneous ethnocentrism, rooted in
biological predisposition described by sociobiologists, to the cultural ethnocentrism, linked to the
structure of society and maintenance of the existing power balance.
The extended survival of the Milošević’s regime was probably not based on its repressive
character only, but also on the successful play with the psychological needs of the population.
Combination of the dogmatic socialism and militarist nationalism and patriotism was cultivated on
the population’s fear of uncertainty concerning the ongoing social and political changes, on their
need for collective identification, on the nostalgic image of the “good old Tito’s days”, and on
the paranoid image of the world as portrayed in the official media.
17
Corresponding relationship in the Western countries could be the correlation between religiosity and patriotism.
17
CONCLUSIONS
Analysis of the relationships between dimensions of the socialist ideology and of national
attitudes resulted in two main findings. One is that patriotism, defined as the attachment to one's
own ethnic or national group, is related to collectivism. The need to belong and to identify with
collectivity could be a psychological basis for the connection. This pattern is interpreted as a
more 'benevolent' combination, not directed against outgroups.
The second finding is that nationalism, patriotism and ethnocentrism are related to the
ideological dimension of militarism including dogmatic-socialist components. This cluster of
attitudes is interpreted as more malignant, resulting largely from socio-political processes, and
easily directed against outgroups. Their psychological function seems to be ego-defensive, since
the correlations dropped, but not disappeared, after controlling for authoritarianism. This
association resembles the relationship between conservatism (particularly its militarist
component) and nationalism in the Western countries. In both cases, the connection includes
rigid adherence to the prevailing system and animosity towards outgroups defined by the same
system.
Hypothesis that humane elements of socialist ideology are not related to nationalist attitudes
is confirmed by low or insignificant correlations with Egalitarianism. Democratism is considered to
be a more universal dimension, not necessarily pro or contra the socialist value system. It is
negatively related to patriotism, nationalism and ethnocentrism.
Differences between the ethnic groups show that the relationships vary according to a
group’s position in the socio-political context. Thus, besides hypothesized psychological processes,
there is detectable social dynamics influencing affinities between ideological and national attitudes
(e.g., minority rights are supported by the more democratic part of the majority group, but such
association does not exist in the minority group).
The findings provide ground for speculation about the interaction of social and
psychological factors. On the one side there are psychological needs or traits (need to belong and
to identify with collectivity, authoritarianism), while on the other are social factors: the rise of
ethnic tensions, conflicts, social pressure, propaganda. As the results, there is convergence of
patriotism and collectivism, and of nationalism and militarism, where attitudes within each pair
appeal to the resembling needs.
18
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21
APPENDIX
Table A Frequencies of nationalities in the sample.
Nationality
Hungarian
Croat
Bunjevac
Serb
Yugoslav
Not answered
Missing
Total
Frequency
202
38
34
212
141
Percent
28.9
5.4
4.9
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20.2
39
33
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4.7
100.0
Table B Correlation Matrix of SOCID factors.
Egalitarianism
Militarism
Militarism
.17
Collectivism
.13
.21
Democratism
-.25
-.26
Collectivism
-.24
22