U.S. and Venezuela Lead World in National Pride
August 31, 2006
Presidents Bush and Chávez may represent opposite poles of the hemispheric political spectrum but the people of the United States and Venezuela have something in common: both are brimming with national pride.
A 33-country survey by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, released June 27, 2006, measured pride across ten specific domains: democracy, world political influence, economic system, social security, science, sports, arts, military might, history and fair and equal treatment of groups.
Americans expressed the most national pride in five of the domains: their democracy, political influence, economic system, science, and military. Venezuelans expressed the most pride in four categories: sports, the arts, history and treatment of groups. The only other country to reach number one in a category was France, which expressed the most pride in its social security programs.
Those scoring lowest on the domain-specific questions were eastern Germans. Second to last were the Poles, followed by the Slovakians, Koreans, Latvians and Taiwanese.
The survey also asked questions designed to assess general national pride, such as to what extent people agreed with such statements as, “I would rather be a citizen of my country than any other country in the world,” and “Generally speaking, my country is a better country than most countries.”
On these questions Venezuelans were even more patriotic than Americans: Venezuelans had a score of 18.4 (out of a possible 25), while Americans had a score of 17.7, followed by Australians (17.5), Austrians (17.4), South Africans (17), Canadians (17), Chileans (17.1), New Zealanders (16.6) and Israelis (16.2).
