Elites often promote competing national narratives: stories about the nation’s identity, history, and defining characteristics. As the much-discussed recent rise in ethnic nationalist narratives worldwide attests, the relative standing of these narratives can vary over time. What happens when a competing national narrative rises to dominance at the elite level? How malleable are public conceptions in response to changes in elite-led narratives? This Element aims to answer these questions by providing a theoretical framework and evidence to advance understandings of shifts in elite-led national narratives, their impact on public conceptions of the nation and who belongs, and the mechanisms through which such eects are realized. We take as our primary case India, where an elite consensus based around a secular understanding of national identity has – as in many other regions around the world – more recently given way to a dominant ethno-cultural one. First, we provide a historical account of competing national narratives at the elite level and changes in their relative standing. Second, we draw on original survey data and a conjoint experiment to show that public conceptions of national identity mirror elite narratives and are fragmented along religious and partisan lines. Third, we document using publicly-available survey data that public conceptions have moved toward alignment with the ethno-cultural narrative as it has become increasingly dominant at the elite level. Fourth, we demonstrate in a survey experiment that elite promotion of narratives through symbols – the use of the Sanskrit word for the country (“Bharat”) versus “India” in speech – can shift conceptions of national identity. Our findings underline the existence of multiple, competing conceptions of national identity, demonstrate how they can differ across time and individuals, and highlight the important role of elites in shifting individuals’ perceptions.

Across the globe, ethnic minorities experience discrimination and exclusion amid rising ethnic nationalism. Yet, many minorities suffer in silence, fearing that participation in protest will challenge their commitment to the nation in the eyes of broader society. In this article, I theorize that collective action frames that draw on national symbols and portray ethnic grievances as pertaining to the nation, more broadly, can strengthen support for resistance movements among ethnic minorities. I test this theory through an original survey experiment with a sample of Indian Muslims (N=1,311). The findings reveal that “national identity frames” strengthen support for anti-Hindutva mobilization while “ethnic identity frames” weaken support when the centrality of Hindu identity to the Indian nation is salient. Overall, the findings suggest that minorities are more supportive of movements employing collective action frames that depict a positive-sum relationship between ethnic and national identity.

Across the world, rising ethnic nationalism is leading to a deepening marginalization of ethnic minority communities. How does such exclusion affect marginalized group members’ sense of self and their commitment to the devalued in-group? Research suggests that minorities may respond to exclusion either by attaching more strongly to the minority group identity and defending the devalued group, or by disassociating from the devalued group in an attempt to seek acceptance by the majority. Through behavioural games in a laboratory setting in the field, this study explores how exclusion affects social identity choices and group commitment among Muslims in India. By randomly assigning a prime that highlights the symbolic exclusion suffered by Muslims in the context of rising Hindu nationalism, and by categorizing participants into high- and low-status groups, we study the role of social status in conditioning responses to exclusion. Specifically, we study responses to questions about social identity and behaviour in games aimed at eliciting pro-social behaviour towards in-group members among a sample of 320 Indian Muslims from Pune, Maharashtra. Our findings suggest that high- and low-status group members respond differently to exclusion; while the prime leads low-status group members to attach more strongly to their high-status (Maharashtrian) identity and reduces their contributions to Muslim in-group members and Muslim NGOs in dictator games, the prime has little effect on high-status minorities, somewhat increasing their contributions in dictator games. Our findings contribute to a growing literature on the effect of rejection on social identity choices and sociopolitical behaviour among marginalized groups.

Working Papers

Evaluating the Effects of Inclusive Historical Narratives on Democratic Attitudes: Evidence from India and the United States (with Nicholas Haas)

Concerns about the state of democracy have surged in several countries amongst new evidence that many citizens do not value democratic principles or accept election results. Many suggest that at the core of these anti-democratic beliefs is a dismissal of some voters – ethnic minorities – as lesser members of the nation. In this project, we study whether historical narratives that highlight ethnic minorities’ positive contributions to the nation increase perceptions that they are entitled to speak on the nation’s behalf, and thereby enhance majority members support for the democratic process. We theorize that inclusive historical narratives can counteract the notion that minorities are lesser members of the nation and thus, the anti-democratic belief that their votes count less or not at all. To test our theory, we conduct online experiments in the world’s two largest democracies: India and the United States. In our experiments, we randomly assign participants either politically neutral or inclusive educational content sourced from real history textbooks. We then use both behavioral and stated preference measures to evaluate whether differenthistorical narratives affect perceptions of minorities’ place in the nation and support for anti-democratic attitudes, norms, and policies. Our findings indicate that battles over history education may carry consequences for majority members’ support for democratic principles and ethnic minorities’ political voice.

Ethnonationalist governments frequently adopt policies that challenge the status of ethnic and religious minorities as equal members of the nation. We propose that such policies—whether symbolic or material—impose an attention tax on marginalized groups, reducing their cognitive bandwidth and leading to suboptimal economic decisions. We test this hypothesis in India, where the ruling party promotes a nationalist ideology favouring Hindus over Muslims. In a field experiment with nearly 3,000 workers performing data entry and information processing tasks, participants were randomly exposed to social media content referencing either symbolic or material exclusionary policies. After completing the labour market task, in which treated participants performed better, workers chose between two types of payment contracts. Despite their higher productivity, treated participants were significantly more likely to select economically suboptimal (‘wrong’) contracts. Our findings demonstrate that even purely symbolic exclusionary policies impose an attention tax, leading to tangible economic consequences and exacerbating economic marginalisation through cognitive and psychological channels.