Measuring Identity in Substate Nations: Evidence from Quebec

Understanding the complex relationships between territorial identity, federal institutions, and political attitudes in multinational states requires accurately measuring territorial identity. However, popular measures of territorial identity such as the Linz-Moreno scale are increasingly contested, while newer alternatives are poorly understood. This article provides theoretical guidance on how to select and interpret different quantitative measures of territorial identity based on evidence from an original survey in Quebec. Through survey experiments, correlations with associated political attitudes, and quantitative text analysis, we show that “relative” measures of identity, such as the Linz-Moreno scale, are well-suited to capturing nationalist sentiment, while “absolute” measures, such as point scales, are better at quantifying the intensity of particular territorial attachments. Among the two point-based measures we test, we find that a constrained allocation is better at revealing more politicized forms of Quebec identity.