An increasing body of research considers how national identification shapes individual attitudes to immigration. However, less explored is the reverse question of how exposure to immigration, and the corresponding views about non-native out-groups, affect individuals’ sense and strength of national identity. This paper focuses on this question, proposing two competing expectations. A backlash hypothesis predicts an increase in nationalistic attitudes in response to growing anti-immigrant sentiment and exposure to immigration, as natives identify more strongly with their in-group in contexts of increasing ethnic diversity. By contrast, the alternative hypothesis expects that, by potentially eroding social and political trust, increasing anti-immigrant sentiment and exposure to immigration could undermine national identification and attachment.

The empirical strategy is two-fold. Relying on individual-level panel data from the British Election Study (BES) Internet Panel, the first study employs dynamic panel models to examine how changes in immigration attitudes affect respondents’ reported strength of British (and English) identity. Preliminary results suggest that attitudinal shifts in a pro-immigration direction foster stronger national identification, while shifts in an anti-immigration direction diminish it. The second empirical study seeks to further contribute to this question. By using time-series cross-sectional analyses coupled with an instrumental variable approach, it examines how rising shares of foreign-born population shape natives’ sense of national identity in a larger set of European countries. These analyses have important implications for our understanding of the complex relationship between immigration and nationalism in contemporary European democracies.