CHAPTER II
METHODOLOGY
In
this chapter, the design for this multinational research project will be laid
out. First, the underlying philosophical stance of the entire work will be
briefly consider, a conceptual framework that draws from the literature but
that attempts to close gaps in that literature that may pertain to the issues
under study. Then the methodology to be employed in the research will be
considered.
Conceptual Framework
Building
on the ideas of Gellner (1983), Anderson (1991), Giddens (1985) and others, the
overarching stance taken in this study is to conceive of nation-states not as
entities of objective reality but as "imagined communities" (Anderson
1991). The project thus builds on social constructivist (Onuf 1989, Berger and
Luckmann 1966) arguments to see national identity as constructed and never
fixed; that it can be meaningful to persons; that it is constantly reworked
from a repertoire of traditions, myths, and representations; and that it can be
employed when it makes political sense (Breuilly 1982, 382).
Furthermore,
the emphasis will be primarily on Billig's (1997, 6) conception of banal
nationalism: "the ideological habits which enable established nations...to
be reproduced." While Billig describes how nations are reproduced
co-constituitively—i.e., both by agent (individuals) and structure (the
nation)—he focused more on that part of the process that involved how nations
inculcate citizen habits. The emphasis here, however, is on the inverse: the
way that ordinary people in their everyday lives respond to (supra)nationalist
discourses and formulate their world views based at least partly on this
response. A goal will be to examine how the two entities—the nation and the
EU—are thus being reproduced by their citizens.
This
approach shifts the emphasis of study from objective characteristics of the
national states or the EU as a supranational entity, and instead focuses on
people themselves and how they conceive of their nation's existence and
reality, how and to what extent that nation may be changing in the face of an
encroaching European Union, and whether that is, in the view of the citizen, a
good thing.
To a certain
extent, the national discourse “out there” in society is about national
character, what constitutes a nation. As Stephenson (1967, 93) has written,
"national character is what a nation is prepared to talk to itself and
others about.... It is what gives a nation a sense of its own identity."
These studies thus begin with discourses about national and European institutions,
and touch upon national character matters, but they end with how people
perceive those discourses and whether or not they seem attached to one or more
of them.
Such
an approach necessitates, as Giddens has noted (1985), a strong psychological component
to the analysis. Thus, subjective understandings people have of their
attachments to political institutions are central to the study. An intensive
analytic approach (Brown 1980, 112-114) is utilized in an attempt to gain a
deeper understanding of participants' views. An approach based securely on
subjective reality would help to ground the analysis in a way that previous
theoretical literature on nationalist practices tends not to be (Terhune 1964,
Worchel 1997). In that sense, this study joins a growing body of literature on
the impact on the self of events of culture-wide significance (Breakwell and
Lyons 1996, Wicklund and Oosterwegel 1995, Stryker 1980, Eller 1999).
It
may be useful to point out that “subjectivity” referred to here is not employed
in the sense of an opposition to scientific “objectivity” (or presumed
scientific objectivity, [Rosaldo 1994]), but in the sense of individual,
“self-referent notions” (Stephenson 1953, 248). This has the sense of viewing
the world through one’s own mind, of individual opinion as a valid object of
study. More about the methodology employed in this study and its basis in the
scientific study of subjectivity is presented below in the methodology section.
Following
Pentland (see previous discussion in the introductory chapter), this project
made use of at least two theoretical positions—the supranationalist and
the pluralist—as bases for two possible forms of attachment to the EU.
In addition, following the nationalist literature, a third and essentially opposing
factor—the nationalist—was posited and investigated. Basically, the
project then examined whether European participants in this study would connect
with these forms of affiliation, or would exhibit different ones. More on these
forms of attachment will be discussed below in this chapter.
Social
psychological theory, and especially social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner
1986), is naturally helpful to an analysis whose focus is on personal
impressions of political discourse. Thus, following social identity theory
(SIT), this analysis did not center on proximate group behavior—i.e., behavior
within a group where participants can see and hear each other but on how grand
cultural and political forces influence the individual, and how national/supranational
issues affect individual structuring of social identity.
SIT advances the
notion of identity salience, that people will form and reform their
social identity from a repertoire of multiple identities, depending on
contextual demands. A focus of the study was on those demands that may provide
greater or lesser salience for the participant. Similarly both to SIT and some
political scientific analyses, nationality here is conceived as resting in
large part on an "us vs. them" basis, and attempts were made to focus
on outgroups that the individual believes to be relevant.
In
contrast to much of the research in SIT, this project eschewed structured
experimentation in artificial settings for data collection, instead attempting
to gather data in as naturalistic a setting as possible. This meant operating
on site, doing fieldwork at various places around Europe and utilizing
methodologies such as Q and interviewing techniques to elicit face-to-face,
in-depth comments. It is hoped that a project that is focused on subjectivity
will contribute to a more nuanced reading of individual differences than is
evident in SIT's concept of the self (Cinnirella 1996, 255).
Finally,
it may be appropriate at this point, after noting what this study attempts to
do, to comment as well on what it does not include. In this study there will be
no speculation on the psychological need people have for group attachments.
This will be accepted as given and will not be explored in any fundamental way.
Rather, emphasis will be on the relative strength of those ties and with which
entity at the national or supranational levels people feel more comfortable
associating.
There
will also be no philosophical speculation on the ultimate nature of nationalist
sentiment, whether that might be situational or primordial (Richmond 1981;
Davis 1997), but rather an acceptance that nationalist feelings are very real
and present. The sense people have of their national identity, it is assumed,
constitutes a force in itself worthy of study.
Finally,
this project will not attempt to examine "national character" as
such, what characteristics of that character might be, or even whether it
exists or not in fact. There will be no speculation on whether or not the
participants in the study fit a modal personality (Inkeles 1997) that may be
associated with a national character. Instead, as noted previously, the focus
will be on how people understand their relation to their nation vis-a-vis the
European Union.
Methodology
Because
the focus of this research is on subjective understandings of political
discourse, the methodology employed should necessarily be focused on the
individual. To avoid as much as possible the pitfalls of methodological
individualism and the confusions of infinite variation, however, the
methodology should at the same time attempt to seek out and explain patterns of
behavior across individual expression. It should thus bridge the chasm between
quantitatively- and qualitatively-based research. And of course it should be
rigorous and adhere to all scientific canons. In answer to all these demanding
criteria, the primary research tool used in this project is Q methodology
(Brown 1980, McKeown and Thomas 1988, Stephenson 1953), an approach that seeks
the orderly examination of human subjectivity.
Invented
by William Stephenson in the 1930s (Stephenson 1935, 1953), Q methodology
involves the rank-ordering of a set of statements (Q sample) by a participant
in an array that reflects that person's overall perspective relative to aspects
of discourse expressed in society on a particular topic. As Stephenson (1978)
observed, there is a "shared communicability" in society on most
topics, and one can locate a "concourse" of statements that
approximates this. Then, by a process of "focalizing attention," a
participant will arrange these statements to reflect his/her subjective
structure relative to the topic in question (Stephenson 1978, 28).
Factor
analysis of the results from all participants in a study will then bring
operant factors to the surface. In this way, Q attempts to bring a structured
and statistically relevant analysis to the data. The goal of a Q study is to
reveal common groupings of opinion within a given population on a particular
topic. These patterns are revealed through factor analysis, a powerful
procedure that aids in finding statistically significant groupings in a mass of
seemingly highly diverse opinion. This then allows the researcher to
investigate the factors in greater depth than otherwise, to help in describing
and interpreting shared perspectives.
In
the process, Q inverts the traditional procedures of statistical analysis.
Often referred to as “R” methodology, traditional quantitative analysis is
primarily concerned with correlating opinion with traits such as age or
gender across populations, while Q methodology is concerned with correlating
patterns within persons (McCormack 1998, 5).1
Stephenson
argued that subjectivity is an actual event that can be measured with great
accuracy through subjective behavior analysis (Brown 1999) and that Q
methodology could be a powerful tool in this approach. For Stephenson, a
person’s opinion is an object worthy of study and forms the basis of his or her
subjectivity.
Aided
by Kantor’s tenets on what constitutes psychological events (1938, 1959) and
interbehavioral psychology (1959), Stephenson (1953; 1983, 112-113) attempted
to establish the study of subjectivity as a natural science and thus rescue it
from a sort of dustbin to which it had been assigned by much of behavioral psychology
primarily because of concerns over mentalism (Brown 1997). As Stephenson wrote:
Subjectivity is all about us in every branch of human knowledge–-in religion, politics, economics, literature, science, education, philosophy. Authorities speak with its tongue, and [yet] deny any theoretical and methodological advances that can put subjectivity in line with the universality of science. Objectivity, everyone believes, belongs to the “world outside.” The denial of a place for science in the “world inside,” our subjectivity, is a matter for the ultimate shame of modern science. (1983, 122)
Taking Kantor’s (1959, 16) definition of
interbehavior, the “behavior of specific individuals in relation to concrete
objects and events,” Brown posits further (1999, 43) a “naturalistic
subjectivity” in which a researcher would be drawn to study a person’s
“historical relationship to the political information provided and to its
meaning when viewed subjectively.”
This
does not mean that the approach can reveal the inner workings of the mind, or
that a link can be discovered between thought and action. There is a lively
debate in the psychological literature over the validity of research into
internal causal variables, with the behaviorist view that there are none (Skinner
1953, Wolf 1978). Similarly, Stephenson (1953, 86-100) did not claim that the
methodology says anything specific about internal thoughts or internal causal
variables (Brown 1999, Febbraro 1995). In any event, this study will steer
clear of this debate in simply claiming along with Stephenson that subjectivity
is behavior and worthy of study, and that Q methodology is a valid and valuable
tool in that effort. Since opinion can be revealed through Q analysis, it can
be studied, measured and compared with others’ opinions. As long as this is
done with appropriate operations, this can form the basis of a scientific study
of subjectivity.
Q
methodology has been used primarily in psychology (Stephenson 1987) but has had
broad application in fields as disparate as mass communication (Stephenson
1967), phenomenology (Brown 1994; Delprato and Knapp 1994), education (Stone
1966), public administration and management (Brown, Durning and Selden 1999)
and health care (Stainton Rogers 1991), among others. It has even been used to
study humor (Kinsey 1993) and music (Maxwell, 1999). The literature of Q
methodology is extensive (Brown 1968, 1977) and may now exceed 2500 entries
(Brown 2000).
The
methodology has had a valued place in political scientific research (Brown 1980;
Dryzek 1990, 1996, 2002). It has been shown to be especially useful in gauging
whether a particular political discourse is resonating within a population, and
whether it is resonating in ways that theorists and/or general commentators
suppose. Both of these characteristic strengths of Q were especially helpful
for this study where the thrust was to learn more about how Europeans attach
more with their nation or the European Union, and whether those affiliations
might be how analysts and commentators suppose them to be. For a similar
example of how Q has been useful in this way, Dryzek (1997) employed it to show
that the overarching consensus on liberal democracy traditionally thought to
exist in the United States is wrong. Instead, in his study he found that there
are other operant patterns of subjectivity that give rise potentially to
different resonant discourses on democracy in American society.
Noting Q’s power in thus revealing different
discourses, deLeon and Steelman (1999) have called for its use in public policy
studies in general to aid especially in fleshing out varieties of opinions on
controversial policy issues.
While
there have been numerous Q studies on identity (see for example Brown 1984,
Davis 1997b, Goldman and Emke 1991, Marshall 1991, Wong and Sung 1998), and
recent work using Q in Eastern Europe to study civic culture (Klicperová 1999),
attitudes towards economic liberalism (De Holczer 1990) and democracy (Dryzek
1997, 2002), the technique has only recently (Haesly 2001) been used to examine
identity change in the context of the European Union. These studies thus join
with this pioneering effort in this regard. It is hoped that the procedures and
results, as noted previously, will demonstrate the usefulness of Q to this
important issue area.
The Concourse. For Q
methodology, the concourse represents an important part of the basic phenomenon
of interest for study. Taken from all that is spoken or written on a particular
topic, the concourse could be a huge number of statements, perhaps on the order
of several thousand. Stephenson (1978, 25) in fact posits that the number is
theoretically infinite and, in what he called the “law of the concourse,” that
it is growing all the time (1983, 75). The statements are reduced using
Fisherian design (Stephenson 1953, 101-113) to a manageable number for a Q
sample to be constructed. It is this smaller number of statements of the Q
sample that is then administered to participants in the study. More is
presented below on the particular Q sample for these studies following these
more general comments on the properties of a concourse.
A
concourse has several empirical properties (Stephenson 1983, 75-76). Since
statements are taken from general public discourse, they should all be
understood by the participants. But they may be understood differently by each
of the participants, even apprehended differently by the same participant at
different times of life, an important and telling property. The statements
reflect something of the general culture and as such should reflect
understandings that people have about an aspect of that culture.
In
Q methodology, the basic phenomenon worthy of study is the "whole
response" (Brown 1980, 173), or the viewpoint of a person with respect to
the topic in question. The concourse is therefore critical in helping to elicit
a person’s response to a topic. The goal in collecting the statements from the
concourse for the Q sample is representativeness, to present a fair
rendering of a particular discourse on the topic in question.
In
these studies, the concourse reflects expressions of national and transnational
sentiment. The intent was to reveal salient factors within the concourse on
national and European Union identity and the degrees of diversity within a
community regarding attachment to the nation and/or to a supranational entity.
An important distinction thus needs to be drawn on the one hand between what
can be described or what has been said by commentators about a nation or a
supranational entity, and on the other hand what people think about those
descriptions or statements, and whether and to what extent there is agreement
with them.
An individual's
picking and choosing a way through a sample of statements, finding those that
s/he agrees or disagrees with, could be conceived as that individual's attempt
to establish an identity on the particular issue in question. It is a way to
work out a positive distinctiveness with regards to a topic, or a
viewpoint that would distinguish that person from another, which is a critical
part of establishing a person's social identity (Cinnirella 1996, 253-254).
The concourse for this project was first
collected in 1998 for dissertation work in France by the editor of this volume.
Subsequent fieldwork was carried out in France using this concourse. Following
the successful completion and defense of the dissertation (Robyn 2000), a
cohort of researchers was gathered to then translate this concourse into the
several languages and different cultures for this seven-nation project. More
about this translation process and problems encountered will be addressed
below.
The concourse for
the original French study was collected from a variety of sources: books,
journal articles, newspapers, and statements by interviewees. Some statements
were located in the theoretical literature on nationalism and the EU, some from
mainstream discourse and the popular press, some drawn out of and modified from
the social psychological literature concerning aspects of motivation, and some
from comments elicited in administering Q sorts to European participants. All
statements were thus either derived from the literature or otherwise indigenous
to the population, and related to concepts of national and supranational
identity formation. The statements for this French study are listed in Appendix
1; in this section of the study, only certain ones are excerpted for
illustrative purposes. The Q statements for each of the country studies are
appended at the end of the appropriate chapter.
It
is pertinent to note here that, other than the forms of attachment described
below, which themselves were advanced to articulate intellectual positions
relative to national and integration theory, there is a dearth of explicit
description in the literature on forms of European attachment to national
versus supranational identity. This points again to a genuine need in the
literature for studies of this kind.
Reiterating
the EU discussion in the previous chapter, Pentland (1973) described two
theoretical positions on European integration as predominant: the supranationalist
and the pluralist. Supranationalists, believing that modern technology
and social problems on an international scale compel transnational cooperation
and perhaps even possible political unity, are skeptical of the ultimate
capacity of the nation-state to deal with the complexities of modern life. They
may have been profoundly affected by the past performance of the nation-state,
particularly its implication in atrocities in European history. Individuals who
hold these views would likely agree with the following statements from the
concourse:
The sovereign nations of the past can no longer
solve the problems of the present; they cannot ensure their own progress or
control their own future. (From the autobiography of Jean Monnet, an architect
of the early forms of the European Union)
European disunity is the result of a
deliberately-fostered fiction of full national sovereignty and of the absolute
effectiveness of national policies. (From a speech by Jacques Delors, former President of the
European Commission)
National divisions will disappear as a new
generation of Europeans grows up. (From an interview)
The nation-state is too weak to secure us equality
and too strong to allow us liberty.... It is the focus of man's irrational,
dysfunctional and often destructive emotions. (From an article by David
Mitrany, an early proponent of supranational government)
I think of myself as a European first, then my own
nationality next. I feel I am a citizen of Europe more than of France. (Derived
from the identity literature)
I am very attached to Europe as a whole. (Derived
from the identity literature)
Greater European integration can give national
minorities more a sense of their own identities. (Elizabeth Meehan, Citizenship
and the European Community)
In
contrast to supranationalists, pluralists might have a greater appreciation for
the diversity of national cultures, and the inevitable need for a national
state to protect and defend that culture. They might see European integration
as a much more deliberate process of interaction, debate and discussion among
nations whose sovereignties might be surrendered only under the most critical
circumstances. According to pluralists, any emergent supranational government
would have to be run at the behest of the member states. Along with
nationalists, to be described below, pluralists see a natural limiting factor
to political integration: "a significant but persistent core of national
identity in each state, in whose service governments may feel obliged to act in
ways unproductive for integration" (Pentland 1973, 47). Pluralists
therefore may have a mix of national and supranational identity tendencies but
allied strongly to neither. In the sample of statements, the following are
representative of the pluralist viewpoint:
I want a Europe of nation states that are as
politically and culturally different as they are geographically diverse. (From
a speech on the future of Europe by former British Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher)
Europe will be stronger precisely because it has
France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own
customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into
some sort of identikit European personality. (From the same speech by Margaret
Thatcher)
Unity in Europe does not create a new kind of great
power; it is a method for introducing change in Europe ... it is not a blueprint, it is not a
theory, it is a process that has already begun of bringing peoples and nations
together to adapt themselves jointly to changing circumstances. (Jean Monnet,
from his autobiography, and in his later period of more pluralist leanings)
European countries are diverse, but it is possible
for a European Union to work. (From an interview)
Our national leaders are capable of managing our
institutions in a global environment. (From an interview)
Both
the supranationalist and the pluralist positions above share an interest in and
a certain commitment to political integration in one form or another. The
significant differences between the two relate to the speed and inevitability
of the process, and the character of the resulting governance structure.
What is not
investigated in the analysis so far is a view diametrically opposing both. That
view would be the nationalist. More than simply skeptical of
supranational governance, the nationalist would be opposed to it. Like Bauer
(1924, 135), the nationalist would have a belief in a nationally shared
"community of fate," a common history of glory and defeat that would
tie together a people within a certain bounded territory into a "community
of character." Like Montesquieu and Herder, the nationalist would believe
explicitly in the idea of a national culture, and accept that it differs from
any other culture. This fundamental incommensurability would inevitably thwart
true political union, not simply slow it down or change in some way its
character, as a pluralist might argue.
Drawing
on the nationalist literature from Montesquieu and Herder to Bauer and Kohn,
Smith (1983, 21) derived seven propositions from the "core nationalist
doctrine":
1. Humanity is naturally divided into nations.
2. Each nation has its peculiar character.
3. The source of all
political power is the nation, the whole collectivity.
4. For freedom and
self-realization, men must identify with a nation.
5. Nations can only be fulfilled in their own
states.
6. Loyalty to the nation-state overrides other
loyalties.
7. The primary condition of
global freedom and harmony is the strengthening of the nation-state.
Along with several of these core
propositions, other statements of nationalist character were collected. Thus,
the following statements in the concourse are representative of the nationalist
position:
Humanity is naturally divided into nations with
their own peculiar characters. (From Smith, above)
Globalization means the death of my national
culture. (From an interview)
I do not hate foreign persons in my country, but I
feel they are polluting our national identity. (From a speech by Jean-Marie Le
Pen, leader of the right-wing Front National in France)
Loyalty to the nation-state overrides other
loyalties. (Smith)
The baptism of Clovis is the baptism of France.
(Slogan of a right-wing political group in France on national origins)
The European Union represents an unattractive
homogenization of European cultures. (Constructed by the author from political
discourse on European Union matters)
European countries are too diverse for a European
Union to work. (Interview)
The Nation is essentially the source of all
sovereignty; nor can any individual, or any body of men, be entitled to any
authority which is not expressly derived from it. (Declaration of the Rights
of Man, Article III)
France is not really herself except in the first
rank of the countries of the world. (From the autobiography of Charles de
Gaulle)
Our identity as a nation is migrating to the
European Union and we are left empty as a result. (Constructed by author from
political discourse on European Union matters)
The
nationalist/pluralist/supranationalist sentiment is thus displayed
schematically in the Q sample structure in Table 1:
Main effect Levels N
Identity Nationalist 12
Pluralist
12
Supranationalist 12
__________________________________________________________
The Q sample structure is incorporated in the
full listing of the Q statements found in the appendix to the French chapter.
Following the successful
administration of these statements in the French study and once the decision
was made to attempt a cross-cultural multinational study, the task was to
construct Q samples for each of the countries under study. This was done by the
authors of each of the chapters in this book.
In most cases,
simply translating the statements directly posed no special linguistic problem.
But for several of the statements—especially numbers 5, 15, 24 and 27-the
meanings were so directly connected to the French experience that alternative
statements needed to be found that would convey the same meaning to persons of
that country. Using their intimate knowledge of the cultures in question (for
most of them their native cultures), the researchers then found cultural equivalents
for these statements.
Some may object to the cross-cultural nature
of this project, arguing that Q is so finely tuned to the particular culture
that it cannot be safely carried out of that context. In their recent study on
societies in transition to democracy, for example, Dryzek and Homes (2002)
argue as much, insisting in their multinational studies that their researchers
in the field in effect construct culture-specific Q samples.
However, we feel on safe ground in arguing that,
with the few statements especially reconstructed as mentioned above, the rest
of our statements can cross the cultures represented in our studies. Our
approach can accommodate this because of the subject matter. The intent of the
entire European integration project, after all, is to establish some
commonalities among Europeans. These commonalities may involve basic principles
of federalism or the dynamics of European integration, which can be discussed
with the same statements across cultures because a European-wide discourse is
taking place on these issues. Or the commonalities may simply be to establish
and react to the EU as one common source of governance. At the other end of the
spectrum in question, the national, the notion of national identity may have
particularities for each nation but has as well universal principles, as Smith
has pointed out.
In
any event, the Q samples in these studies provide less a theoretical construct
than a departure point for further exploration of issues of subjective
impressions of national and supranational identity. The factors that would
eventually emerge from these investigations, as described in each of the
country chapters that follow, may or may not reflect the theoretical constructs
described above, and might reveal different positions relative to the question
under study.
Since this did in
fact occur, and four or more factors were revealed for most of the countries,
rather than the three posited in the literature, the task was then to examine
those various factors that did in fact emerge, to gauge whether they had
significant strength, to describe them, and finally to speculate about whether
people have actually changed with respect to the theoretical issues Pentland
laid out.
It
could well be asked at this point how it is that any other forms of identity
could emerge if only the statements from these three forms were utilized in the
concourse. Perhaps there is a position that would not be represented by these
statements. In response to this question, it should first be remembered that
only these three possible identities have been posited in the literature, and
thus the study to some extent is limited by the limited discourse that has been
theorized on this topic. People are similarly confined in the choices they can
make about any topic from the discourses available to them in society.
Secondly,
the question misunderstands the potential variety of opinion that Q allows
participants. Q principles and procedures permit great variability in
individual attitudes. The participant is not making unconnected judgments about
a series of statements, but is asked to weigh the response to a statement in
conjunction with other statements. In this way the sorted Q sample is a picture
of identity in which statements are woven into a larger mosaic. Each person was
thus asked implicitly to compare each of the N=36 statements with the other,
resulting in (½)(N)(N-1)=630 different possible judgment evaluations.
In
addition, in simply separating out three piles of statements (agree, disagree
or neutral), the way that a participant normally begins a Q sort, the variety
potential is on the order of 3.384731763 × 1015. Putting this into
perspective, with 6 billion people in the world, there are 564,122 times as
many ways to separate the 36 statements into only three piles as there are
people in the world.
This
would seem to indicate in itself plenty of opportunity for individual
variability in the sorting process. But participants do not stop at sorting
into only three piles, and instead continue to place the statements into an
array (described below). Here, even more variability is displayed, for there
are 36! = 3.719933267 × 1041 different ways that the statements could be
rank-ordered from “agree” to “disagree.” It should be noted here that a Q-array
is a modified form of rank ordering in which each statement in a column is not
ranked in relation to other statements in that column, but instead in relation
to the statements in each of the other columns. This has the effect of reducing
the potential for variability noted above, although it will still be quite
large.
Allowing
such latitude in subjective interpretation contributes to the credibility of
the factors that emerge in the study. When people have this much opportunity to
express individuality but nonetheless ultimately group into distinctive
factors, it is strong evidence that that form of discourse resonates in the
population.
In
its remarkable capacity for allowing this kind of individual expression, Q is
of “almost subatomic nature” (Stephenson 1983, 78) in its focus. It thus
responds well to Kantor’s (1978) specificity principle in scientific analysis,
which alerts researchers to the huge potential for individual variability in
natural phenomena. As Kantor wrote on the specificity principle as applied to
psychology, “no two individuals are alike nor perform any type of adjustmental
action the same way in recurrent situations” (1978, 123). Research in
psychology must account for such potential variability. In its attention to
specificity, Q is particularly strong in this regard.
Yet
there is another side to Q as well, its attention to communability; that
is, what an individual’s response has in common with responses from others.
Even with all this potential for variability, in this study (as in all Q studies)
participants grouped themselves together onto a relatively small number of
factors. These factors will be described in the chapters that follow.
This
communability of responses has two key advantages for a Q study: it permits the
researcher to more easily describe factors that actually exist in the community
and it allows a smaller number of participants to make up a valid population
set. If, despite such great potential for individual variability, people
actually do fall into relatively small numbers of groups of opinion, then a
proportionately smaller number of participants may be used in the population
sample. This is another important distinction between R and Q methodologies.
Adding more participants will likely not add more factors but simply more
persons on each factor, displaying similar patterns of identity. The respondent
design helps insure diversity in the population sample, and thus a larger “net”
to catch the necessary “fish.” A number of studies attests to the fact that
repetitious patterns arise as larger numbers of participants are included in
the sample (see Coke and Brown 1976; Dryzek, Clark and McKenzie 1989). More
about the population sample for this study is presented below.
What
makes people reduce to such groupings? Why are we not as idiosyncratic in our
views as some would have us, or as we ourselves might wish to be at times?
Speculating in this way on basic human nature would be beyond the scope of this
study. It may be enough to say simply that factor analysis proves that it is
so. But Stephenson did theorize on this (1983, 93-94) and posited a “law of
affectability” in which he argued that groupings in the concourse form by way
of “confluences of feeling.” Feeling is
a common element
running through a factor from one end of it to the other, in such a way that
the statements of the Q sample arrange themselves in a perfect order, each
statement in its appropriate place, like pieces of a jig-saw puzzle fitted
neatly into place. (1983, 93)
With such a powerful tool to reduce variability
to manageable proportions for study, it is no wonder that one scholar (Duijker
1979, 18) lauded Q in this way:
Human situations are to some extent like snowflakes: They are innumerable, they exhibit a multitude of forms, and above all they are highly perishable. Q-methodology, Stephenson’s great contribution to psychology, was designed to deal with this “infinite variety,” to make it accessible to scientific explanation without distorting it.
Procedures. In these studies, participants were asked to
sort 36 statements that make up the Q sample, 12 each from the three
theoretical positions described in Table 1, from agree (+4) to disagree (-4),
following this instruction in the language of the country: "These are
statements made by people concerning national identity and the EU. Sort these
statements from those you agree with to those you disagree with." The
point of the exercise was to elicit subjective impressions and as such, there
was of course no "correct" manner of sorting the statements. The data
gathered were then factor analyzed using PQMethod (Schmolck and Atkinson
1998), a computer software program made available specifically for
Q-methodological studies, in order to gauge the emergent factors.
Participants
were first asked to read over the statements to get a broad impression, then to
sort them into three piles—agree, disagree and more or less neutral—before more
carefully examining the statements to decide finally how they would fit
precisely into the array. Thus, Q is a "forced choice" methodology
(see discussion of the forced choice aspect of Q methodology in Brown [1980,
201-203, 288-289] and Stephenson [1953, 59-61]) in which participants are
required to choose how to characterize their attitudes about a statement and
set it into a general descriptive picture about nationality and
supranationality. For example, there are only three spots in the array for
those statements that the participant would feel were most characteristic of
his/her feelings about the topic. This requires the person to make distinctions
that otherwise might not be made in the course of thinking about or discussing
a topic.
The
remainder of the statements are then set into the array, according to a
continuum represented in Appendix 2. When the sorting is finally done, it
should be structured as in the continuum, with statements "most disagree
with" to the left and those "most agree with" to the right, with
the statements more or less "neutral" in the middle.
The
neutral area in the middle part of the Q sort (0, +1, -1) is reserved for those
statements that create conflict for the participant, or about which the person
feels less certainty. Far from being an area of less interest to the observer,
the more neutral statements can be equally as critical to revealing how the
participant feels. These statements can be particularly useful in eliciting
discussion, clarifying the meanings of statements, or probing the feelings of
the participants.
When
done, this array is a structured representation of the subjectivity of the
participant on the topic of nationality and supranationality. Subjectivity
emerges from virtually the beginning of the sorting process as a participant
decides how to place the statements, and as the participant and the observer
discuss how the statements are placed.
The
underlying dynamic is that of Stephenson's "psychological
significance" (cited in Brown 1972, 81-84), that people react to these
statements in terms of the degree of significance they feel the statements have
for them. Especially statements at either end of the array are of greatest
salience for the individual, whether in a positive or negative sense. It would
be in this part of the structure that individuals would be expressing those
sentiments that they would be most attracted to or repelled by, in effect
creating visibly their social identity. Those statements in the middle part are
of lesser significance, although as stated previously, they can be of great
interest in establishing more nuance for the person's social identity.
The P-Set. Because of the intensive nature of Q Method
and because, as we have seen, factors within discourses are relatively few in
number, the methodology can be administered to a comparatively (i.e., compared
to quantitative procedures) small group of persons. In Q Method parlance, the
group of participants in a study is called a population set, or P-set
for short. The P-set in the original French study, described in more detail in
the appropriate chapter, was comprised of 37 French participants. The other
country studies ranged from that to a few more than 40 each. In total, then,
more than 300 Europeans participated in the entire project.
In a study with the
objective to examine how nationalist/supranationalist discourse is resonating
in the population, participants needed to be selected on a purposive basis and
come from a wide variety of backgrounds and from varied settings. The P-set for
the project is represented in Table 2.
The
search was for representativeness in the sample. This is not to be confused
with random sampling; breadth and diversity are more important in this case,
based on how the participants are likely to exhibit "theoretical
saturation" (Glaser and Strauss 1967). Theoretical saturation refers to
the point beyond which “no additional data are being found whereby [the
researcher] can develop properties of the category” (Glaser and Strauss 1967,
61). Beyond this point, research is simply adding more participants to the
study and nothing to the theory.
As a reminder, in Q
methodology, representativeness is as much or more in the Q-sample statements
as in the P-set. In effect, what is being sampled are statements from the
discourse, and not the persons themselves. Thus the concern in constructing the
P-set is simply to cast an effective “fishing net” in an attempt to understand
perceptions among a group of people. In Q, one is not searching for
concreteness in generalizations to the population in its entirety, or findings
based specifically on personal characteristics of the participants.
The P-set has then
been constructed to be as broad as possible, and yet divided along levels in
which one might expect to find significant national identity differences. In
these studies, the levels were determined to be: age, gender, socioeconomic
class and setting.
Older Europeans,
who are likely to have experienced World War II and/or its aftermath, might
have internalized a deeper attachment to national symbols than younger persons.
As we have seen, the European Union has often been characterized as an elite
construction based largely on considerations of global economic matters. One
might then expect differences in attitudes based on class and professional
working status.
Because global
economic matters tend to impact differentially in urban compared to rural
settings, it might be expected that greater support for supranationality might
be exhibited among city dwellers. At least one analyst (O'Brien 1993) has found
just such a noticeable urban/rural dichotomy over questions of national
identity.
Interviews
with a variety of French participants during the lead-up to the original study
suggested differences based on gender as well: French males, it is suggested,
many of whom take part in military service and also participate more (at least
as spectators) than women in sporting events that often take on nationalist
character in Europe, might be expected to exhibit more nationalist leanings.
In
Table 2, it will be noted that there are 16 combinations within each sample.
Participants for the studies were selected based on a combination of the four
effects listed. Thus, one participant was a young working-class male from an
urban setting (aceg), another a young working-class male from a rural setting
(aceh), and so forth for the remainder of the 16 combinations. In general, we
aimed for two participants of each type, which would yield a P-set size of n =
32.
TABLE 2. P-Set Structure for (Supra)National Identity
Study
Main effects Levels N
_____________________________________________________
A. Gender (a)
male (b) female 2
B. Age (c) young (d) older 2
C. Class (e) working (f) middle 2
D. Setting (g) urban (h) rural 2
_____________________________________________________
ABCD = (2) (2) (2)
(2) = 16 combinations
Setting. As the following chapters will show, each
country offered its own interesting “living laboratory” for analysis of
national/supranational identity issues. A particular country’s history and
contemporary relationship with the European Union movement would offer hypotheses
for prediction on whether its citizens would have generally favorable or
unfavorable attitudes towards a European ideal. These hypotheses would then be
tested by the research from the field.
To
fulfill setting requirements for the P-set, we administered roughly half the Q
sorts in urban and half in rural settings. The quality of the data gathered was
only enhanced by the fact that nearly all of us live on site in the countries
under study and so know the conditions well. The briefest time spent in country
was for the original French study, and that was a lengthy three months.
Interviews. In addition to Q, we relied on in-depth
interviews to validate and cross-check observations, and to reduce systematic
bias in data collection. This can be critical when studying an issue of such
complexity as national identity. It helps to avoid the limitations of
observation inherent in qualitative approaches (Patton 1980, 244-245). These
limitations include how the observer can affect the study situation, the
selective perception of the observer, and the possibility of the participants'
observations being subject to bias, anger, emotional feelings of that day, to
recall error, to reactivity to observer, or to self-serving responses.
Q sorts were set up
with various participants who best fit the P-set criteria. During the Q sorts
we asked often detailed questions prompted by how the participants were
constructing the sort. Finally, in some cases we could return to do more
in-depth interviews with certain participants who seemed best to exemplify
factors that emerged in the study, to understand better the factors highlighted
from the Q sorts.
The preceding has described the procedures
used in the administration of the Q sorts in each of the countries of these
studies. From the data that had been gathered and analyzed, arrays were
constructed for each factor from each country. These groupings are then
described in the chapters that follow.
Once this data had
been thoroughly examined in its particulars by each author, then another
analysis was performed on all of that data together by the editor of this
volume. This second-order analysis takes all of the arrays from all of
the various factors from each of the countries, re-enters them into the
PQMethod program to factor analyze them again, this time in comparison with one
another. The result of this second-order analysis is a rigorous recheck of all
factor arrays, and a valuable overview of the entire project, providing useful
comparisons of the relative strength, intensity and position of the factors
cross-culturally. The results of the second-order analysis provided the
grounding for the narration of overall findings in the introductory chapter.
Appendix
1.
Q
Sample and Factor Arrays:
European/French
National Identity
Factor Arrays
Statements A B
C D
1. Our identity as a nation is migrating to the European
Union ‑4 2
‑2 -1
and we are left empty as a result. (N)[1]
2. Rapid technological innovations and the global economy has 0
0 2 ‑1
contributed to my optimistic mood for France. (SN)
3. Humanity is naturally divided into nations with their own ‑1 4 4 4
peculiar characters. (N)
4. Globalization means the death of French national culture. ‑3 3 -3 3
(N)
5. I do not hate foreign persons in my country, but I feel ‑4 0 -3 ‑2
they are polluting our national identity. (N)
6. The sovereign nations of the past can no longer solve the 4 -2 1
0
problems of the present; they cannot ensure their
own
progress or control their own future. (SN)
7. Loyalty to the nation‑state overrides other
loyalties.(N) ‑2 2 0
‑1
8. Adopting a single European currency will
be difficult but 3 -1
4 1
necessary for France. (PL)
9. My parents would be unhappy if I were not
married to ‑3 0
‑3 ‑4
someone who was also French. (N)
10. The European Union is a means to ensure
peace and 3 -4
4 0
stability for France in the future. (PL)
11. Our national leaders are capable of
managing our 0 -1
1 ‑1
institutions in a global environment. (PL)
12. I think of myself as a European first,
then my own 4 -2
‑4 ‑4
nationality next. I feel I am a citizen of Europe
more
than of France. (SN)
13. I want a Europe of nation‑states
that are as politically ‑1 4
‑1 2
and culturally different as they are
geographically
diverse. (PL)
14. I am very attached to Europe as a whole.
(SN) 2 0
3 ‑4
15. The baptism of Clovis is the baptism of
France. (N) ‑2 3
‑2 -2
16. Unity in Europe does not create a new
kind of great power; 2 1
‑1 0
it is a method for introducing change in Europe. It
is not
a blueprint, it is not a theory, it is a process
that has
already begun of bringing peoples and nations
together to
adapt themselves jointly to changing circumstances.
(PL)
17. France must maintain an independence in
European affairs. ‑1 2
3 2
(N)
18. I want France to represent an alternative
to American 0 0
2 3
influence, another voice in international affairs.
(PL)
19. Europe will be stronger precisely because
it has France 0 4
3 4
as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each
with
its own customs, traditions and identity. It would
be
folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit
European personality. (PL)
20. The European Union represents an
unattractive homogenization ‑3 1
‑1 1
of European cultures. (N)
21. The pace of European integration is too
slow. (SN) 1 -1
‑2 ‑2
22. European countries are too diverse for a
European Union to ‑1 1
‑1 2
work. (PL)
23. National divisions will disappear as a
new generation of 0 -4
0 ‑1
Europeans grows up. (SN)
24. France is not really herself except in
the first rank of ‑2 3
‑2 ‑3
the countries of the world. (N)
25. European disunity is the result of a
deliberately‑fostered
2 -3 0
0
fiction of full national sovereignty and of the
absolute
effectiveness of national policies. (SN)
26. I think European integration has gone
about as far as it ‑1 -1
‑1 ‑3
can go. (PL)
27. French wine, cheese and perfume are the
best in the world. 0 1
2 2
(PL)
28. If someone said something bad about being
French, I would ‑2 2
0 ‑3
feel as if they had said something bad about me. (N)
29. I may obey laws, but I don't feel
especially patriotic. 1 -3 ‑4 4
(SN)
30. Our society is united by a delusion about
our ancestry and 1 -2
‑4 1
by a common hatred of our neighbors. (SN)
31. It is possible to separate political
identity from cultural 1 0
1 3
identity. (PL)
32. In general my country has definitely
profited from its 3 -4
2 ‑2
involvement in the EU. (SN)
33. The nation‑state is too weak to
secure us equality and too
1 -2 0 1
strong to allow us liberty.... It is the focus of
man's
irrational, dysfunctional and often destructive
emotions.
(SN)
34. Federalism with subsidiarity is a way to
reconcile what 2 -3
1 1
appears to be irreconcilable: encouraging the
emergence
of a united Europe while keeping loyal to one's
homeland
at the same time. (PL)
35. The Nation is essentially the source of
all sovereignty; ‑4 1
1 0
nor can any individual, or any body of men, be
entitled
to any authority which is not expressly derived from
it.
(N)
36. Greater European integration can give national minorities 4 -1 0 0
more a sense of their own identities. (SN)
Appendix
2.
Q Array
(with statements indicated for composite
Factor 1 of French Study)
Most Disagree Most Agree
‑4 |
‑3 |
‑2 |
‑1 |
0 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
1 |
4 |
7 |
3 |
2 |
21 |
14 |
8 |
6 |
5 |
9 |
15 |
13 |
11 |
29 |
16 |
10 |
12 |
35 |
20 |
24 |
17 |
18 |
30 |
25 |
32 |
36 |
28 |
22 |
19 |
31 |
34 |
26 |
23 |
33 |
|
27 |
|
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