Patriots for three weeks. National identification and the European Football Championship 2012

During a FIFA World Cup or a European Football Championship, spectators usually sympathise with their own country's national team. The national team becomes a significant point of reference for national identification and - in the event of athletic success - a source of national pride. National identification, however, may be expressed as a patriotic feeling of belonging, but may also turn into negative, exaggerated nationalism which idealises the own nation and devalues outsiders. This paper investigates the patriotic and nationalistic attitudes before, during and after the European Football Championship 2012. To this end, longitudinal data from a student sample are analysed. Findings show that viewing the games of the German team is associated with a steep increase in patriotism and a moderate increase in nationalism. This rise results from the experience of strong, positive emotions, the involvement in collective rituals and the adoption of national symbols during the European Cup. In contrast, these effects were already markedly weaker only a few days after the end of the tournament. Thus, the European Football Championship has probably not produced a lasting change in patriotic or nationalistic attitudes.