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Rena KADYROVA
Ph.D. (Psychol.),
associate professor at the Department of Psychology,
Baku State University (Baku, Azerbaijan).
ON SOME SOCIOPSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL IDENTITY OF THE AZERI YOUTH
Abstract
The author offers an analysis of some sociopsychological aspects of the development of the Azeri national identity in the specific cultural-historical context of
Azerbaijan. She draws on the vast amount of empirical data she obtained through her own experimental studies of the development of the national identity of the Azeri youth.
I n t r o d u c t i o n
Today, any state’s legitimacy and effectiveness largely depends on its ability to instill an awareness of national identity in its citizens. This explains why the development of statehood and national awareness, which began in Northern Azerbaijan when it gained its independence in the late 20th century, was intimately connected with the development of new identity forms, particularly national identity. Today this problem has become even more intense: the Republic of Azerbaijan is facing several difficulties such as vast migration, highly aggressive Armenian nationalism, and separatism, which have already created about a million refugees and displaced persons. This negatively affects the formation of national, personal, cultural, professional, religious, and other types of identity.
In its turn, the sociocultural, historical, economic, and geopolitical specifics of Azerbaijan, a country which is the meeting place of Europe and Asia, the West and the East, as well as globalization and a powerful flow of new ideas and values supplied by the West and the East, offer the young people of this country a wide choice of self-identification matrices.
Experts who belong to various theoretical trends (primordialism, constructivism, instrumentalism, and ethnosymbolism)1 disagree over how to define the nation. The majority, however,
1 Detailed analyses of these ideas are found in the following works: A. Dawisha, “Nation and Nationalism: Historical Antecedents to Contemporary Debates,” International Studies Association, Vol. 9, Issue 3, June 2002, pp. 3-22; C. Geertz, “Primordial and Civic Ties,” in: Nationalism, ed. by J. Hutchinson and A. Smith, Oxford University Press, New York, 1994, pp. 27-43; E. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Cornell University Press, New York, 1983; The Invention of Tradition, ed. by E. Hobsbaum & T. Ranger, Cambridge University Press, London, 1983; Nationalism, ed. by J. Hutchinson and A. Smith; H. Seton-Watson, Nations and States: An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism, Westview Press, Boulder, Colo., 1977; A. Smith, Nations & Nationalism in Global Era, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1995.
agrees that national identification can be described as the nation’s cornerstone. The national selfidentification process is largely determined by a psychological, subjective factor, in particular the desire and willingness of members of any community to think of themselves as belonging to a specific nation. From this it follows that the national identification process and development of national identity have attracted not only sociologists and political philosophers, but also psychologists, social psychologists included. This means that a sociopsychological analysis of the relevant problems and prospects can and should be employed to clarify the possible future development variants of Azeri society.
This article looks at certain aspects of the development of national identity of the Azeri youth related to the following questions: How is the development of national identification unfolding? How is the formation of national identity going on? What place do national identity processes occupy in the development of the nation? I shall analyze them in the context of the findings obtained through a series of experiments carried out in different years. Before going on to the results, I would like to outline the theoretical context of these experiments.
Identity: A Cognitive Category and Social Representation
The experiments were based on the following sociopsychological theories, which supplied the framework for the phenomena of identity. They are: H. Tajfel’s social identity theory;2 J. Turner’s self-categorization theory,3 and S. Moscovici’s theory of social representations,4 which, among other things, postulate the following: the development and creation of national identity is largely related to the ideas of the members of a group about their history, comparisons and correlation with other groups, self-identification, and group assessments.5
The social identity theory stems from the fact of belonging to all sorts of social groups (gender, ethnic, national, professional, etc.) and the fact that belonging to these social groups might develop into part of an individual’s self-concept. H. Tajfel has the following to say on this score: “Social identity—that part of individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of membership of a social group (groups) together with the value and emotional significance attached to that.”6 An individual’s self-identification with any group is, strictly speaking, a form of social identity. By assuming it, the individual must distance himself from other, alien groups.
The self-categorization theory postulates that individuals have a multiplicity of personal and social identities that are organized in the form of a category hierarchy. J. Turner, its author, extended the process of categorization to the “individual self-concept.” According to him, an individual’s conception of himself can be considered self-categorization: the cognitive grouping of characteristics
2 See: H. Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1981.
3 See: J. Turner, Social Categorisation and the Self-Concept: A Social Cognitive Theory of Group Behavior. Advances in Group Processes, Vol. 2, JAI Press, Greenwich, Conn., 1985, pp. 77-121.
4 See: S. Moscovici, “Notes Towards a Description of Social Representations,” European Journal of Social Psychology, No. 18, 1988, pp. 211-250.
5 These diverse manifestations of the phenomena related to the development of different forms of social identity, which have become an object of intensive studies by Western social psychologists in the past few decades, have only recently attracted the attention of post-Soviet academics. Under Soviet power, due to the dominant ideology that insisted on the development of “Soviet man” and ignored the great importance of ethnosocial, linguistic, and religious distinctions of various ethnosocial groups, research into these questions was not permitted.
6 H. Tajfel, op.cit., p. 255.
inherent in himself and the idea of himself as identical, analogous, and equivalent to a certain class of stimuli distinct from another class of stimuli.7
Finally, the theory of social representations postulates that many of the phenomena that describe the diverse sides of social identity, such as the phenomenon of “in-group favoritism” and “out-group denigration,” are most likely rooted in the system of the ideas generally accepted in the child’s social milieu rather than produced by his own cognitive system. From this point of view, development largely depends on a child belonging to a particular social group and the types of practices and discourses typical of it.
These theoretical postulates were used to create special methods and carry out a series of experiments8 which measured such elements of national identity as the degree of identification with one’s national group; assessment of the importance of national identity; ideas about one’s own national group and those of others; and national stereotypes and feelings.
Some Experimental Results and Their Interpretation
For the purpose of the present article we have selected, out of the entire body of experimental data, some of the results related to the measuring of the degree of importance of national identity and a child’s degree of national identification and attitude toward other nations.9
The degree of importance a child attaches to his national identity was measured by his comparison of the subjective importance of national identity against certain other identity forms, such as gender and age. The child was offered a set of cards with various identity categories depicted on them and was invited to select those he related to himself. The procedure went on until each card had been selected. In this way, the child ranked the cards and different identity types associated with them. The results were then mathematically and statistically processed; the results obtained indicate in particular that at the age of 6 Azeri children demonstrate an understanding of their ethnonational identity and are capable of identifying themselves with the nation.10 The degree of such identification increased as the child grew older (see Table 1).
In turn, the degree of a child’s identification with his/her national group (the degree of Azeri-ness) was measured in the following way: the child was offered a set of cards depicting the following definitions: “not an Azeri at all,” “Azeri to a certain extent,” “true Azeri,” as well as “don’t know” and “other.” The answers were calculated according to the following point system: “not an Azeri at all” earned 1 point; “Azeri to a certain extent,” 2; “true Azeri,” 3.
All the children demonstrated a high degree of identification with their national group. Significantly, the 9-year-old—the first generation (in the year 2000, the time of our experiments) born in the new, independent state—showed the highest degree of national identity (see Table 2).
Our experiments revealed another important fact, namely, the statistically important role of the language in the degree of identification with one’s own national group: schoolchildren taught in the
7 See: J. Turner, P. Oakes, “Self-Categorization Theory and Social Influence,” in: The Psychology of Group Influence, ed. by P.B. Paulus, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ., 1989, p. 245.
8 The experiments were conducted in 1999-2000 and encompassed 510 schoolchildren from Baku of both sexes and four age groups (6, 9, 12 and 15 years) taught in the Azeri and Russian tongues.
9 As a rule, these types of measurement become important in cross-cultural studies that contain useful comparable contexts. In our case, we found the inner national comparable contexts important that were created by the age, ethnic, regional, and linguistic distinctions.
10 To avoid any misunderstandings caused by the terms of ethnonational identification, it should be said that the term Azeri (Azerbaijanian) relates to both categories—ethnic and national identity—while the term “citizen of Azerbaijan” undoubtedly relates to the national identity category.
Table 1
Comparative Subjective Importance of Ethnonational Identity Depending on the Respondents’ Age
Identity Mean Scores H-criterion Kruskal-Wallis Test
Ethnic identity (Azeri) .2 3. 1 II
6 years 6.46 P < .01
9 years 4.53
12 years 5.67
15 years 5.61
National identity (citizen of Azerbaijan) x2 = 12.31
6 years 9.58 P < .006
9 years 8.36
12 years 7.38
15 years 6.21
Table 2
The Age Factor and Degree of Identification with One’s Own Ethnonational Group
Identity Mean Scores Kruskal-Wallis Test
Degree of “Azeri-ness” X2 = 13.07
6 years 2.86 P < .004
9 years 2.98
12 years 2.88
15 years 2.79
Azeri tongue demonstrated a higher degree of identification. This is shown in Figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1 shows the age dynamics of the mean scores of the national identity (citizen of Azerbaijan) chosen by schoolchildren in the Azeri and Russian educational sectors. The scores are calculated from 0 down, since the smaller the score the higher its subjective importance. It was determined by the Kruskal-Wallis test.
Fig. 2 shows pairs of mean scores of subjective importance of national identity in different age groups of schoolchildren taught in the Azeri and Russian languages. The smaller the score, i.e. the higher the column of the hystogram, the more important the identity. Fig. 2 demonstrates that, despite
Assessment of Importance of National Identity Among Schoolchildren in the Azeri and Russian Sectors (P < .0001)
Figure 1
6 years
9 years
12 years
Russian
• • Azeri
15 years
Figure 2
The Importance of National Identity Significantly Grows Only for Schoolchildren Taught in Russian (P < .03)
0
2
4
6
8
10
6 years
9 years
12 years
The Azeri language sector of teaching The Russian language sector of teaching
15 years
a certain amount of “Russification” caused by the language used in school, by the age of 15, schoolchildren in the Russian sector reach almost the same level of subjective expression of national identity as their contemporaries taught in their native tongue.
Before going on to discuss the data obtained, let us talk about another highly interesting result produced by the same series, namely, Azeri children’s attitude toward people who belong to different national groups. The children were given a set of six positive and six negative adjectives (“clean,” “dirty,” “happy,” “sad,” “clever,” “stupid,” “hardworking,” “lazy,” “friendly,” “unfriendly,” “good,” “bad”). Each adjective was written on its own card. The children were asked to choose the adjectives they thought best described the national in-group (the Azeris, in our case). Then they were asked whether they liked their in-group. When the child answered this question, he was asked: “To what extent do you like or dislike the Azeris?” Then the children were asked the same questions about outgroups (Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, English, Germans, and Americans). Because half the adjectives were positive and half were negative, we could derive a score which measured the positivity or negativity of the children’s descriptions of their own national in-group (Azeri people) and the outgroups.
Table 3 gives the mean scores reflecting Azeri children’s positive attitudes toward the national in-group and out-groups depending on age: the higher the mean score the more positive the attitude.
Table 3
Attitudes to the National In-Group and Out-Groups Depending on Age
Mean Scores
Age Azeri Russian Ukrainian Georgian English German American
6 years 2.73 1.71 0.68 0.92 1.06 0.67 1.2
9 years 2.86 1.81 1.08 1.27 1.95 1.09 1.9
12 years 2.6 1.8 1.56 1.91 2.3 1.56 2.33
15 years 2.48 1.86 1.42 2.17 2.17 2.09 2.32
Total 2.7 1.8 1.2 1.6 1.9 1.4 1.9
As can be seen from Table 3, the child’s own national group received the highest positive values (which testifies to in-group favoritism); the degree of positive attitude toward one’s own national group decreases with age. On the other hand, as children become older (between 6 and 12), their positive attitude toward other national groups (with the exception of Russians) becomes statistically significant. The results of a statistical analysis (the Kruskal-Wallis test) reflecting the degree of positive attitude toward national groups depending on age are given below (see Table 4).
There is no agreement among social psychologists about whether one’s “Self’ is first associated with the in-group and is then differentiated from the out-groups, or whether these are parallel and interconnected processes. The self-categorization theory mentioned above believes that the desire to acquire a positive in-group self-identity is psychologically primary compared with differentiation from an out-group. This motivation prompts the individual to accept his in-group and to proceed to differentiation from an out-group. This theory, however, ignores the linguistic factor and especially the use of group categories in speech.
From our experiments it followed that in-group favoritism in children was not necessarily associated with denigration of an out-group. In real life, however, according to historians, nations behave
Table 4
The Results of the Kruskal-Wallis Test Reflecting Positivity toward National Groups Depending on Age
Azeris Russians Ukrainians Georgians English Germans Americans groups ° °
x2 37.36 1.10 30.5 74.2 62.2 88.8 54.95
reliabi- P < .0001 Not P < .0001 P < .0001 P < .0001 P < .0001 P < .0001
lity reliable
differently: they were created in opposition to each other. Michael Billig has the following to say: “Historically, myths about the nation tend to be developed as a nation is being created in contradistinction to other nations. Nations imitate the national forms of others, but do so in ways that proclaim their own national uniqueness. This is apparent as a nation liberates itself from a colonial power... Britain developed many of its modern symbols of nationhood ... in conscious contradistinction to French styles of nation-making. The first recorded cartoon, depicting John Bull as an ‘Englishman,’ also shows a Frenchman, as thin and meager as Bull is fat and generous. An identification with the group caricature is also an identification against the rival Other . national affirmation is achieved through negation.”11
In other words, there are fundamental differences in the way national identity develops at the level of the child’s cognitive processes and in the way these processes develop in history. Historical context and speech specifics, which are isolated and never discussed in the cognitive theories of social identity and self-categorization, correct the development of national identity as a type of social identity. M. Billig has pointed out that linguistic discourse, which in an era of nationalism acquires new, nationalist meanings, introduces its own logic and sets its own framework for the development of national identification and identity. In this connection, we shall discuss the third group of facts derived from the experimental research in 2007.
We polled 210 respondents between 17 and 19 years of age (schoolchildren and students) who live in Baku, the republic’s capital, and the regional centers (Ganja and Lankaran). One hundred and forty-six of them were Azeris, 54 were ethnic Talyshes, while 10 belonged to other ethnic groups. They were asked to use a seven-point scale (from 1 to 7, 1 being the lowest) when answering the following questions:
(1) To what extent do you feel yourself an Azeri?
(2) To what extent is it important for you to be an Azeri?
(3) When you hear a non-Azeri criticizing the Azeris to what extent do you feel criticized?
(4) To what extent do you feel strong ties with other Azeris?
The mean value of the points accumulated by these four questions indicated the degree of identification of the individual; in half of the cases, the term “Azeri” was used to denote national identification; in the other half, the term “citizen of Azerbaijan.” The two terms were used to check whether they could be used as categories of national self-identification. Figs. 3 and 4 show the level of identification with the categories “Azeri” and “citizen of Azerbaijan” among Azeris and Talyshes in three age groups.
11 M. Billig, Banal Nationalism, Sage Publications Ltd, London, 1995, p. 81.
Figure 3
The Dynamics of National Identification (“Azerbaijani”)
Figure 4
The Dynamics of National Identification (“citizen of Azerbaijan”)
No statistical data are needed to conclude from Figs. 3 and 4 that as a national identity category the terms were interchangeable. More than that: ethnic Talyshes demonstrated an even more pronounced identification with the terms “Azeri” and “citizen of Azerbaijan.” This speaks of the exceptionally important and integrating role the culture of Azerbaijan plays for at least some ethnic groups as they acquire their national self-identification. In this way, the Azerbaijanian phenomenon is a unique one: from time immemorial, people of different ethnic origins, cultures, and religions have been living side by side in Azerbaijan. They have created a very specific culture, which allows them to continue living together.
In Europe much is said about multiculturalism,12 which is emerging as a very complicated issue calling for far from simple solutions. Azerbaijan is an example of a multicultural society which came into being in a natural way in the course of history. In the absence of a state policy designed to protect minorities, we can speak only about a kind of multicultural society in which a rich culture, the product of the concerted efforts of all the peoples of Azerbaijan, assumed the role of moderator.
This feature, no matter how advantageous, creates certain problems, mainly because, in a polyethnic society, the state is unable to use ethnic nationalism, a powerful tool of nation-building. We all know that it proved highly useful in Europe in the 18th-19th centuries when nation-building was especially intensive. Without going into detail about the vast body of relevant writings, I shall say that nationalism is a far from simple psychological process rooted in a wide range of sociopsychological conditions and regularities through which national identity develops. All nations involved in nation-and state-building should be aware of this.
In the context of the present article, nationalism is regarded as a source of imagination and thinking of the rank-and-file members of imagined communities13 to which all contemporary nation-states belong. Nationalistic imagination is concentrated around the first person plural, since it is an image of what “we” are. This includes an image of one’s own individuality, one’s own “Self,” and its connection with the category, in the way described by the theories of social identity and social self-categorization. The category itself is important, since no in-group can be imagined as a nation.14 A national group is a special type of group: the idea of the nation’s status includes an imagined community with unique spatial-temporal identities claiming the right to political independence. A. Smith used the following words: a population “must be taught who they are, where they come from, and whither they are going”15 to acquire a feeling of national identity. There is a vast body of writing that permits us to trace the emergence of nationalism accompanied by newly created myths and collective memory. Collective reminiscence, and collective forgetfulness for that matter, is achieved through creating common histories that describe the nation as an individual community. In this way, the past makes the present more meaningful; the nation comes to be imagined as a unique entity with a historical destiny and native land of its own. In this connection, it is important to create an awareness of specificity so that “our” nation looks different from others. To achieve this, we must identify the main principles that should underlie the Azeri identity and Azeri nationalism.
Here we have to distinguish between “ethnic” and “civil” nationalism. The former cannot be created deliberately—it either exists or it does not. Why do some people possess a very high degree of
12 Multiculturalism is a strategy designed to integrate ethnic minorities into society; it differs from liberalism, which treats the individual’s rights and freedoms as a priority. Multiculturalism concentrates on the minorities’ collective rights and interests, including the right to individual and coexisting identities (see, for example: T.R. Gurr, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts, USIP Press, Washington, DC, 1993, p. 427).
13 B. Anderson, Voobrazhaemye soobshchestva. Razmyshlenia ob istokakh i rasprostranenii natsionalizma, KANON-press-Ts, Moscow, 2001.
14 See: M. Billig, op. cit., p. 188.
15 A. Smith, op. cit., p. 184.
ethnic nationalism, while others do not? A. Smith and his studies of “ethni” as an ethnic community that predates the nation provide an answer to the above.16
He argues that there are four conditions that promote ethnic crystallization or emergence of “ethni” in the pre-contemporary era. Acquisition, or later loss, of a definite territory that was believed to belong to the people in the same way as they belonged to it is described as the most important element. This was the “motherland.” Protracted wars against other states and fighting all kinds of enemies, which kept people mobilized for a long time and fed the feeling of community, were another condition: the tradition of battles and wars that thus emerged instilled in later generations a conviction of shared destiny. Its praises were sung in folk poetic tradition and written texts which made myths, heroes, and battles an important part of the ethnic community. The third condition is closely connected with religion, which served as the vehicle by means of which ethnic myths and symbols, in short, collective memory, were passed on from generation to generation. Finally, the fourth condition is associated with a very important, but rarely obtained tool of survival—the myth of being a chosen ethnic group. A. Smith believes that today these four conditions combined encourage ethnic nationalism.
C o n c l u s i o n s
1. Our studies demonstrated that subjective awareness of national identity grows as the child becomes older, that subjective importance of ethnonational identity is rather high in schoolchildren in the Azeri educational sector (especially in 9-year-olds), and that in all age groups children tend to prefer their national groups.
2. At the same time, the intensity of national identity in children is not connected with their attitude toward alien groups, which means that their attitude toward national out-groups does not depend on the degree of their national identification.
3. The children taught in their native tongue (Azeri) attach much more importance to national identity and demonstrated a much higher level of identification with their national group, as well as positive feelings and assessments of their own national group.
4. It should be said that the appearance of the independent Republic of Azerbaijan has opened up new prospects for the nation’s development, which means that we need a specially tailored national policy17 to bring together all the ethnic groups and create the Azeri national identity at a new level.
16 See: A. Smith, “Nations and History,” in: Understanding Nationalism, ed. by M. Guibernau and J. Hutchinson, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 9-31.
17 In his Kontseptsia natsional'noy politiki Azerbaizhanskoy Respubliki (Baku, 2003, p. 27) R.A. Huseinov formulated some of the fundamental principles of national policy.
