Nationalism is defined as patriotic feelings, principles, or efforts. A national identity can be built upon many things, a culture, traditions, and the people. Major events that bring the countries together such as Eurovision and the Olympics. The more people know about their government, the greater the possibility of it being legitimized and the people being happy. While Germany has a national identity, it is considered more of an example of a European identity. Spain lacks a strong national identity, the political unrest has caused strong regional feelings to rise amongst the people.
Since World War II Germany’s political structure has become a democracy. Officially, the country is a democratic parliamentary republic. The policies are decided on through two legislative bodies, Bundestag and Bundesrat, the parliament and the regional representatives. The states within Germany decide most policies and have a wide range of powers that impact the nation as a whole, this allows them to maintain sovereignty and manipulate the national government to benefit all. The main political parties are Christian Democratic Union and the Social Democratic Party however, due to the existence of multiple political parties, each with their own agendas, coalitions, and alliances between the parties must be formed and have led to cooperation in parliament.
Historically, Germany has set the standard for what a nation state having a national identity looked like ironically, they do not support nationalism as much as other countries due to what it has led to in the past. This lead to many socialist policies being implemented, to the point that that it has become a part of the people’s political culture, they think more about how policies, such as universal health care and free university, will impact the population as a whole. Furthermore, since Germany has an 80% turnout rate during voting, the people are almost always support the policies implemented. Hence when xenophobic parties began to grow in rural areas the metropolitan population overwhelmed them during voting and none of their policies passed. The people are pro- big government, believing that the individual should not interfere with government but should actively vote and due
to the construction of the representative bodies, they feel they are heard.
Socially speaking, Germany’s citizens celebrate its nationalism at with the Olympics, Eurovision, and the World Cup. Due to the negativity following Germany after World War II, the government has tried to express more of a European Identity within Germany than a German identity. Germany aspired to be what Europe symbolized – democratic, peaceful, modern, enlightened, and religious – so it began to distance itself from any value that could possible create another Nazi party (Risse and Engelmann, chp. 13, pg. 314). Germany has go as far as banning Nazi symbolism and Holocaust denial, this was done to show how Germany will not tolerate any more hatred. As the European Union and European integration slowly started coming into play, Germany has always supported it. Since the government has a played such a large role in the restructuring of the nation, they have created this sense of trust and legitimacy among the people.
Spain is a collection of regions, each one with their own identities that have survived the rollercoaster of Spain’s government. Spain went from a monarchy, to a dictatorship, to a democracy. Spain’s democracy is a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately, its legitimacy is often contested because of three main issues – the traditional right, anarchism, and Spanish Marxism (Guerrero, chp. 14, pg. 327). The traditional right tries to make the catholic church happy and the dictatorship allowed them to have a lot of influence. This was meant to keep the idea of Spain as a conqueror alive among its people. Anarchism and Spanish Marxism created problems that could not be solved under the dictatorship which caused the people to return to a democracy. Unfortunately, under the democracy the national identities of Basque country and Catalonia re-emerged (Guerrero, chp. 14, pg. 329).
The regionalist sentiments in Basque and Catalonia come from a desire to regain their independence. The people of Spain do not see themselves as Spaniards, they first identify with their region. The representatives from those nations have used the ambiguity between the dictatorial regime and the nation’s history of liberalism. This has allowed for greater pride in being Catalan and for Basque to become a political hegemony. Even under the democracy Spain currently has, these regions are becoming more powerful and gaining support to the point of proposing withdraw from Spain.
Germany and Spain stand in stark contrast. From different political structures, languages, and culture, Germany and Spain have very few things in common. The few shared factors that they have, mainly have to do with the Euro and the European Union. While Germany has created a strong government and economy, Spain struggles to stay whole. The regionalist sentiments and opposition to the central government of Spain shows how divided the nation is, almost paralleling the current state of the European Union. Germany has a strong sense of self which has allowed it to lead the charge for European integration, particularly when the Euro was proposed. Spain lacks a reliable national identity, refusing to listen to the representatives of each region or make the nations policies more inclusive, this has caused the growing lack of trust in the government. On the other hand, Germany makes an effort to listen to its people and actually implement policies that will make their nation better.
Both Germany and Spain want to rise as a political power in the European Union. Currently, Germany has the political and economic success to achieve this notion, even having assisted Spain with its debt. However, we are starting to see all the member states pull away from each other not just Germany and Spain. National identities cause more problems than a collective one, Germany and Spain have had their own issues with national identities. If both nations focus on creating a European identity then both nations will have more in common than in contrast.