Dual or Divided Identities? National Identity and Community Values among Immigrants in Denmark and Western Europe

Over the years, the size of the immigrant population has increased considerably in many Western countries and raised concerns whether the majority population within a nation-state identify with and share a number of common values despite increased ethnic and religious diversity. This chapter includes the immigrant population into the ‘national identity’ debate by examining the extent to which non-Western immigrants identify with and feel proud of their host nation, and it investigates the community values with which they identify, utilizing a nationally representative survey taken among five large non-Western groups living in Denmark and a comparable group of native Danes. The chapter finds that non-Western immigrant groups and their descendants feel less Danish and have less nationalist pride than the majority. These non-Western immigrant groups share a number of crucial values with the native population—most notably a number of liberal and republican values, raising a number of key issues for political theory.