Strategies of Symbolic Nation-Building in West Balkan States: Intents and Results, 2011.

Nation-building as defined in this project consists of two elements. 1. Deliberate homogenization of the population's political-cultural identity; and 2. Policies to link this identity to the state. The project concentrates on symbolic nation-building, meaning state strategies for the manufacture and manipulation of cultural symbols intended to create a sense of nationhood in a population. The aim is to see if these strategies resonate in the population. To determine the success and failure of the nation-building strategies the correspondence between the idea of nationhood that is propounded by the state leaders and the collective self-understanding of the population was measured. Albert Hirschman's trichotomy of "exit, voice and loyalty" was used as a template to operationalise this criterion. Furthermore, large-N opinion surveys were carried out in all West Balkan countries - 1500 respondents in each state - to establish to what degree various groups in the population support the nation idea propounded by the state leaders.