Peeling Back the Layers: Territorial Identity and EU Support in Spain

How do regional and European identities fit together? Building on extant identity theory I formulate three expectations on how territorial identities may relate. I test these using Spanish survey data by constructing a new measure that distinguishes between nested, inclusive and exclusive regional identity, and also accounts for minority nationalism. Consistent with the literature, my findings indicate that nested and inclusive identities are associated with greater European attachment, while exclusive regionalism leads to less attachment. However, counter to the literature, exclusive regionalism dampens European attachment more than exclusive nationalism, and minority nationalism is also associated with less attachment to Europe.

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