An evaluation of the measurement of national, sub-national and supranational identity in major cross-national surveys

This research note assesses the various measure of national/subnational/supranational identity
that have been used in the main cross-national survey research projects. It reduces the variety of measures to three main types – identification rankings (type A), proximity ratings (type B) and
identification ratings (type C). On the basis of cross-survey comparisons of the predictive power of each type, it tentatively concludes that B is better than A and that C is better than B. This
tentative finding is strongly supported by a more rigorous test that capitalises on the occurrence of two of the measures within each of two of the international surveys as implemented in Ireland.
The note concludes by making recommendations regarding the measurement of identity in
established and new cross-national surveys.