Figurations



The rise and decline of national habitus:

Dutch cycling culture and the shaping of national similarity 1

Giselinde Kuipers

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM)

Published in European Journal of Social Theory 16(1): 17-35.

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Abstract

Why are things different on the other side of national borders; and how can this be explained sociologically? Using as its point of departure Dutch cycling culture, a paradigmatic example of non-state-led national similarity, this article explores these questions. The first section introduces Norbert Elias’ concept of ‘national habitus’, using this notion to critique comparative sociology and argue for a more processual approach to national comparison. The second section discusses four processes that have contributed to increasing similarity within nations: growing interdependence within nations; increasing density of networks and institutions; vertical diffusion of styles and standards; and the development of national we-feelings. Together, these processes have contributed to the development of national habitus: increasing similarities within nations, and increasing differences between people living in different countries. These processes have reached their apex in the second half of the twentieth century. The third section explores how these processes have diminished since the 1960s, leading to increasing variations within countries, and growing similarities between comparable groups in different countries. Both the rise and decline of national habitus are illustrated by changes in Dutch cycling culture. Particularly important is the breakdown of trickle down, as a result of the rise of the egalitarian informal ethos. This analysis poses new challenges for sociologists: first, about comparative research; second, about the diffusion of styles and standards, and third, about the consequences of the decline of national habitus for social inequality – as evidenced by the growing rift between ‘locals’ and (bike-loving) ‘cosmopolitans’.

Keywords: national habitus; comparative research; bicycle; Netherlands; globalization; trickle down

Upon crossing a national border, many things visibly change – the landscape, public space, people’s appearance and comportment. Across the border, people often speak a different language. Road signs change, as do retail chains, licence plates, colours of trains and buses, and uniforms of police officers and postmen. Billboards, newspapers, advertisements, radio channels and cell phone networks are different on the other side. There are often noticeable differences in building styles and use of space.

Many such national differences can be traced back to interventions of national institutions like the government, the educational system, cable companies or retail conglomerates – national institutions the regime of which stops at the border. Some things, however, stop at the border without direct intervention of governments or businesses. An example of this is the omnipresence of bicycles in the Netherlands. Everywhere in the country, for instance at every Dutch railway station, one can see endless rows and piles of bicycles. In Dutch traffic, cyclists are everywhere. Immediately after crossing the border, in Antwerp or Aachen, the bikes are gone.

Unlike road signs and cell phone networks, this cycling culture is not a regime enforced by governments or companies. Most people in the Netherlands use a bicycle simply because this is what one does when going from one place to another. Cycling is part of the Dutch national habitus. It is neither conscious lifestyle nor political statement. It is not associated with a particular social class or region. In the Netherlands, the bicycle is a means of everyday transportation, not just for students, sportsmen or the ecologically minded, but everyone: for men in suits, professionals, officials, even the Queen and her family (Ebert 2004; Stoffers & Oosterhuis 2009). This particular understanding of cycling ends at the Dutch border.

This article explores the dynamics of national differences, as exemplified by Dutch cycling culture: why are things different, and why do people behave differently, on the other side of national borders? How can this be explained sociologically? How do such national patterns emerge? How durable are they? In order to answer these questions, I employ the concept of ‘national habitus’, coined by Norbert Elias (1996[1989], 2000[1939]). The concept of national habitus allows us to investigate the processes contributing to the development of national similarities within countries, not only in institutions and physical surroundings, but also in people’s behaviour. Moreover, it allows us to go beyond understandings of national differences purely in terms of institutional structures or national ‘value orientations’.

Comparative research is increasingly central to social science. In Europe, where national sociologies increasingly orientate themselves towards international sociology, many sociologists have found that cross-national comparison is the only way to ‘sell’ Dutch, Danish or Swiss findings to international scholars. Similarity of inhabitants of the same country is an important, often implicit, assumption in comparative research. But what, exactly, do we compare when we compare countries? In the 21st century, can we assume that people in a given country are somehow similar?

Despite mounting critiques of methodological nationalism, nation-states are often used rather unreflexively as the unit of comparison. Here, I propose a relational and processual understanding of national similarity, asking not what national habitus is, but how it has come into being, and how this is related to wider social processes and relations. This approach challenges static culturalist views of national value orientations and identities, as well as the statist bias of institutional approaches. Moreover, a processual approach allows us to see habitus formation as social process, which may wax and wane.

I will address these questions by looking at national habitus formation in ‘bicycle country’ the Netherlands. Rather than giving a full-fledged analysis of Dutch cycling culture, I take this as a paradigmatic case of non-state-led national similarity. The Netherlands is one of the oldest, most stable, and – despite increasing globalization, migration, European integration, and internal polarization – most homogeneous nation-states in the world (Duyvendak 2004; Lechner 2007). With Portugal, Denmark, France, England (& Wales), and Japan, it is among the few countries to come anywhere near the ideal-type of the nation-state: stable boundaries, durable political system, and shared cultural identity (Tilly 1994). Therefore, it provides an excellent case study to explore the formation of national habitus, and the dwindling of this process in the past decades.

Many historians and sociologists have turned to the Netherlands to explore the rise of the modern nation-state (e.g. Adams 2005; Israel 2001). The Netherlands also is a fitting case to explore the latest transformation of the European nation-state. Today, the nation-state seems less potent in its role as producer of national similarities in styles, tastes, behaviours and opinions. As I argue here, the processes leading to increasing national similarity have reached their apex in the 1960s. Since then, these processes have eroded in the Netherlands, other European nations and – possibly – beyond.

This article, then, has several objectives. First, it aims to reintroduce the notion of national habitus in comparative sociological research. Second, it analyzes the shaping of national habitus: the processes that have led to increasing national similarities in the Netherlands and other (European) nations. Third, it aims to show how these processes have eroded, due to increasing globalization, but more importantly (and unexpectedly): as a result of increasing egalitarianism and informalization, leading to the breakdown of trickle-down. This development has considerable implications, both for comparative sociological research and for European politics and societies.

National habitus and Dutch cycling culture

Sociological research has provided us with many examples of the impact of nationality. Ever since Durkheim (1951[1897]), sociologists have known that even the most individual and solitary choice a human being can make varies greatly across countries: suicide. Happiness, too, follows national patterns (Veenhoven 2006). Nationality even impinges upon our bodies: Obesity levels vary greatly across countries with similar income levels and social organization (Rabin et al. 2006). The low incidence of obesity in the Netherlands is often explained from its cycling culture (Bassett et al. 2008).

Cycling behaviour also varies cross-nationally, as Table 1 shows. In the Netherlands a larger share of movements is undertaken by bicycle than in neighbouring countries, despite great similarities in wealth, climate and terrain. As with all aggregate numbers, these are averages. Within the Netherlands, people from Protestant areas cycle more than people from Catholic areas; people of Dutch descent cycle more than descendants of immigrants. Increasingly, educated people cycle more than less educated people (Harms 2006; Pelzer 2010). However, Dutch people in all categories cycle more than people with similar backgrounds in other countries (Bassett et al. 2008).

[table 1 about here]

I propose to call such national patterning of behaviour ‘national habitus’. The notion of habitus has gained prominence in the social sciences through the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1979), but had been used earlier by Norbert Elias (1996[1989]; 2000[1939]). In The Germans, Elias analyzed ‘national habitus’, shared by inhabitants of a specific nation.

‘Habitus’ – derived from ‘habit’ – refers to learned practices and standards that have become so much part of ourselves that they feel self-evident and natural. Habitus is our culturally and socially shaped ‘second nature’. What we learn as members of a society, in a specific social position, is literarily incorporated – absorbed into our bodies – and becomes our self. This incorporation we see in the ease with which Dutch cyclists move through busy traffic – sitting upright, rather than bent over the steering wheel in the manner of sports cyclists. One realises that this is not self-evident when seeing another person lacking this ease, like the clumsy tourists on their rental bikes in the busy Amsterdam traffic.

Habitus is congealed history, absorbed into our bodies – our personal history, which in turn has been shaped by the history of the society of which we are part. This larger history determines the ground-tone of our individual history. Thus our ‘self’, our self-evident, automatic, yet learned behaviour, is partly determined by the country where we have grown up.

Sociological comparison and national habitus

Until recently, most social scientific research ended at the national border. Most researchers limited their data collection to one, usually their own, country. Today, comparative research is the standard, especially in European sociology. The use of ‘comparative’ in this context underlines the self-evidence of the nation-state – ‘comparative’ automatically implies cross-national comparison. All research compares. ‘Country’ apparently is a special category, eclipsing others – the framework in which everything else takes shape.

Ever since Marx and Weber, historical and national comparison have gone hand in hand in social scientific inquiry (Adams et al. 2005; Elias 2000; Steinmetz 1999; Therborn 1995; Tilly 1992; Wouters 2007). Modern Western nations are alike, and in many respects have undergone the same processes. Yet they all differ slightly. Comparison allows us to isolate and highlight the dynamics of these social processes and mechanisms. This ‘historical-comparative’ or ‘process-sociological’ perspective also is the point of departure for this article. I see national differences are the result of relations between social groups and fields. Hence, they are constantly in flux.

More recently, other versions of comparative sociology have emerged, partly fuelled by the increasing availability of large databases. This comparative research is less attuned to the process character of national differences: it is often static and atomistic. ‘Country’ is a column in a table, a ‘factor’ affecting individuals – although of course these individuals together make up a country. Often, ‘country’ is conceptualised as policy context or institutional setting. By ‘country’ researchers then really mean ‘state’. Countries, in this perspective, are essentially aggregates of institutions. But institutions do not emerge out of thin air. They emerge and change in interaction with each other, and with national traditions, habits, and conventions (cf. Lamont & Thévenot 2000).

Other comparative research conceptualizes national differences as ‘value orientations’ (Hofstede 2001; Halman et al. 2005). In this approach, countries produce individual ‘value orientations’ remarkably like psychological profiles. While revealing and evocative, the mechanisms through which such patterns are produced remain unclear. In effect, this approach produces classifications rather than theories.

Wimmer and Glick-Schiller (2002) have famously critiqued the unreflexive ‘methodological nationalism’ of much comparative research. Making the nation the level of analysis often produces national effects – but that does not necessarily prove that ‘country’ is the determining variable. The insufficient conceptualisation of ‘country’ or ‘national background’ in comparative research is problematic, but quite understandable. Having done a lot of comparative research myself, I have found that cross-national comparison is rather like a constant Gestalt switch. The same image seems to depict something different each time, and somehow one never manages to see the different images – the duck and the rabbit, the pretty young girl and the old woman with the crooked nose – simultaneously. Yes - all the French have something in common. Or no – it’s really all about age. Or class! Or no – it is all so individual that one cannot really generalise much about anything. Or it is all about the structure of a particular field, rather than the nation as a whole. Then again, all Europeans seem so similar, so very European, when compared with Americans.

Partly, this constantly shifting perspective is inherent in doing research. By continuously contrasting, looking for similarities and differences, patterns can be found and generalisations be made. But above all it is a conceptual problem. Existing theoretical frameworks in large-scale comparative research have insufficiently conceptualized how nation-state formation leads to similarities on the level of individual behaviour. Hence, they are not attuned to variations and fluctuation in processes of national habitus formation. This paper proposes to unravel the relation between state formation and individual behaviour – hence, the shaping of national patterns – by looking at national habitus as a long-term social process.

National habitus as social process: The shaping of national similarity

Process sociology suggests that before asking what something is, one always should ask first how something has come into being. From this perspective, the question about national habitus requires rephrasing. Not what is national habitus? Nor what is the national habitus of country A, B, or C? But through which processes do people in a country become alike? Under what conditions does such a national ground-tone in behaviour, institutions and standards emerge? After all, country comparisons only make sense if one assumes that people within a country, on average, have more in common with each other than with inhabitants of other countries.

This dynamic approach opens up the way for the acknowledgment that national similarity is not an eternal, unchanging fact. There are periods of more and of less national habitus, periods during which other processes have more impact. After a long period of increasing similarity within nations, many countries now appear to be undergoing a movement towards ‘less national habitus’. In this article I distinguish four processes that, in Europe, have been central to the shaping of national habitus.

The first process is increasing interdependence (Elias 2000 [1939]; Tilly 1994). From the Middle Ages onwards, people have become part of increasingly larger social units – from village, to region, to nation-state. With this growing interdependence, people became more aware of others, identified more with them, and increasingly adapted to them. Through mutual adaptation and identification people become more similar, as do people from different classes and status groups within a country.

This process of increasing interdependence on regional and national levels went hand in hand with the erosion of other interdependencies and identifications. The elites of the early Middle Ages often maintained strong bonds, over long distances, with elites in other regions. These ties became looser as the nobility become more involved with local bonds (Elias 2000[1939]). National integration also led to decreasing connectedness in border regions. For instance, local dialects, which in border regions often were similar, disappeared with the increasing dominance of standardised national languages. Nowadays, inhabitants of villages in border regions of different countries, who in previous centuries could easily communicate, cannot understand each other.

At the same time – and this is the second process – the density of this network increased: people were connected with more people, and in more ways. This process manifested itself most visibly in the proliferation of nationwide institutions. The advent of national states led to ever more institutions that directly influenced people's lives – all of which stopped at the national border. First came institutions directly connected with the monopolies of violence and taxation: the army, law and justice (Weber 1978 [1920]; Weber 1977). But the scope of these state institutions expanded: education, care, social security, media (Adams 2005; Anderson 1995; de Swaan 1988; Tilly, 1992). Organisations that were not bound to the state increasingly kept to the same geographic demarcations: manufacturers, retailers, newspapers. That was partly out of practical considerations: because it was efficient, because government regulations also stopped at national borders. But ultimately it was because national borders had come to be self-evident, the logical and natural delimitation of any enterprise (Knippenberg & de Pater 2002).

Institutions simultaneously connect and shape people. This becomes apparent in one of the most powerful national institutions: education. People’s willingness to hand over their children, at a very young age, to this state institution underlines the self-evidence of the nation-state. Education entails the systematic transfer of standards and practices, within a national framework. Thus it is central to the formation of national habitus. Not only does it (re)produce social difference and inequality, as generations of sociologists have shown – education also produces social similarity.

A third process occurs both within, and outside institutions: the vertical diffusion of standards, tastes, and practices. Cultural phenomena often manifest themselves first in the upper social strata, and from there ‘trickle down’ (Fallers 1954; Simmel 1905). The driving force behind this process is emulation of the habits of high status people. Partly this is the result of upward aspirations: people hope to move on in life by imitating prestigious styles and behaviour – what Merton (1968: 319–22) called ‘anticipatory socialisation’. It is also caused by status anxiety and shame. People adapt to their superiors so as not to offend them (Mennell 2007). Deviant behaviour or the wrong tastes are painful, and may lead to exclusion and sanctions.

Such trickle-down processes are top-down, but not necessarily enforced or imposed. Yet, vertical adaptation does not always occur spontaneously. Institutions, such as schools, are vehicles for vertical diffusion. History has witnessed ‘civilising offensives’ during which the education of the lower classes, the underprivileged, strangers, colonised, and other uncivilised groups was undertaken in a forceful way (Mitzman 1987). Non-state institutions also account for such top-down offensives. For instance, Dutch cycling culture was boosted both by efforts of the private General Dutch Cycling Federation (ANWB) and by the advertising campaigns of bicycle manufacturer Gazelle (Ebert 2004; Stoffers & Oosterhuis 2009).

Most standards for good behaviour – from eating with knife and fork to the appreciation of impressionist art – have spread in this way: from the top to the bottom. A simple example: flooring. Wooden floors used to be a sign of poverty, while carpets were for the well off. Carpets became accessible to more people, and attractive because of the aura of luxury and status. These days, yuppies across the Western world have bare hardwood floors; while carpets have become common or even ‘dirty’.

Through such processes of adaptation and imitation people living in the same country become more and more alike. In every country, national elites set the standard. National habitus therefore reflects the dominant group. The French national style still reflects the lifestyles of court nobility: an upper stratum engaged primarily with stylization and the negation of practical endeavours. German national habitus is the rather schizoid fusion of two conflicting upper layers: Prussian military discipline and the intellectual romanticism of Bildungsbürgertum (Elias 1996[1989]).2

The Dutch national habitus still bears the mark of a bourgeois top layer: merchants and ‘regents’ without noble titles or elaborate courtly rituals (Kennedy 1995; Wouters 2007). Even the Dutch court adapted to the bourgeois mores, instead of the other way around. The Dutch royals are still characterised by an informal, bourgeois, and rather unglamorous style. Their habit of publicly riding a bicycle – a tradition upheld already by five generations of the House of Orange – underscores their lack of pretentiousness.

The fourth and last process leading to national similarity is the development of national ‘we-feelings’. As a rule, people who are similar tend to identify with each other, and people emulate those with whom they identify. But this relationship is not completely straightforward. People who are alike do not automatically identify with each other – to the chagrin of Marxists, feminists, and other emancipatory movements. National feelings sometimes have sprouted from minimal ‘objective’ similarities. The United States is a notable example: a diverse nation, with a rather unobtrusive state – except in regard to symbols and rituals directly connected with national sentiments, like naturalisation ceremonies and the saluting of the flag (Mennell 2007).

Processes of national identification are set in motion in several ways. Often, they coincide with increasing integration. Nationalism has also been implemented top-down, via ‘civilising offensives’, for instance to discourage other, regional or religious, identifications (Tilly 1994; Weber 1977). In the Netherlands, the ‘ordinary’ royals with their bikes and unpretentious manners were instrumental in the development of a national we-feeling (Velde & Verhage 1996). Anderson (1995) pointed to the importance of the media in shaping ‘imagined communities’. National sentiment unites large groups of people who can never all know each other personally. Mass media provide the symbols, stories, and rituals to bind them. Nationalism reached its pinnacle with the advent of mass media, from newspapers to television.

So how do these four processes explain the Dutch fondness of the bicycle – and its ending at the national border? The wide adoption of the bicycle in the Netherlands can be understood from the country’s homogeneity and high level of integration; the traditional dominance of the upper middle classes; and the small power distance between classes (cf. Ebert 2004). This led to little ostentatious display of status, even a certain status competition through ‘conspicuous non-consumption’. The elite could not afford too much pomp and circumstance because of the small power distance. This dislike of ostentation was adopted by lower status groups.

The bicycle is a cheap, sober, simple means of transportation, requiring its rider to do all the work. Cycling, moreover, is quite incompatible with bodily status ornamentations, such as stylish clothing. The bicycle became the preferred means of transportation not just for the worker or the petty bourgeois who could not afford better, but also for the professional classes and the ruling bourgeois elites. What is more: more comfortable alternatives, like the motorbike or scooter, are considered déclassé.

The bicycle gives distinction through simplicity. The cycling Dutch royals, an image well known in the Netherlands and abroad, aptly reflect Dutch status politics. The images of the ‘informal’ queens, princes, and princesses on their bikes have acquired strong symbolic significance. The bicycle became a potent Dutch national symbol. Commercial companies have often used bicycles to appeal to Dutch we-feelings. Moreover, the bike is a central element in Dutch ‘nation branding’ aimed at foreign visitors and investors.

Of course there were facilitating conditions: compact cities, flat land, suitable climate. But most importantly: over the years more conditions supporting cycling came into existence. An increasingly dense network of institutions and conventions developed around the bicycle, from city planning regulations and cycling legislation to a nightlife organised around bikeable distances. Moreover, the bicycle influenced other developments. Dutch bike use has been held accountable for anything from low obesity rates to the lack of a real metro in the capital city.

What is most important in habitus formation, however, is that for Dutch cyclists, all these associations and backgrounds are largely irrelevant. All Dutch are embedded in a network of conventions, habits, and practices to do with cycling that are felt to be self-evident. If you want to go somewhere, you just take the bike. Everybody cycles. You wouldn't know any better. In Dutch cities the unit of distance is the cycling minute, even in real estate brochures. The history has been forgotten – because cycling has become a second nature.

The decline of national habitus and the rise of the cycling class

I have distinguished four mechanisms in the formation of national habitus: increasing interdependence; intensification of interdependencies and proliferation of national institutions; vertical diffusion of standards and practices; and growing national identifications. Thus, inhabitants of the same country grew more and more alike, while contrasts with people in neighbouring countries intensified. These processes in the direction of ‘more national habitus’ appear to have reached their cumulative apex in the second half of the twentieth century. Since then, Western nations have undergone parallel processes towards ‘less national habitus’.

The process of increasing interdependence has continued. While previously, this led to national integration – from town to region to nation – this now leads to more connections and dependencies beyond the borders of the nation state. Increasing globalisation entails growing interdependence on a transnational level, and growing awareness of, and mutual adaptation to, people across the border. This process diminishes national dependencies. Institutions become less bound to national boundaries: they are incorporated into international networks, and are competing more and more with transnational institutions. As a result, the impact of connectedness and dependencies on the national level becomes less pronounced – and thus the second process, the intensification of national dependencies, decreases.

However, even with growing transnational integration, national institutions remain central hubs, gatekeepers, and orientation points for international connections (Janssen et al. 2008; Sassen 2009). Often, national institutions are the ones bringing in, managing and shaping globalisation, making ‘the global’ something quite different in every country. Rather than weaken the nation-state, globalization strengthened the executive and intermediary functions of the state (Sassen 2009). However, more and more things, practices, ideas, people, standards enter the nation from outside. Thus, the national becomes less and less central to processes of habitus formation.

The greatest change can be observed in the third process: vertical diffusion of standards and practices. Since the 1970s, in many countries this process has faltered or slowed down. Traditional vertical diffusion now competes with many other modes, media, and directions of transfer. Both at the top and the bottom of the social hierarchy, people resist the notion that some standards and practices are better or ‘higher’ than others. The idea of vertical transfer of standards by orchestrated interventions and civilising offensives has become discredited, in the Netherlands maybe even more than in other countries.

In the 1960s and 1970s many countries witnessed a process of strong upward mobility. This caused a broadening and democratisation of tastes and styles (Van Eijck & Knulst 2005; Wouters 2007). Things the elite previously avoided, even tried to abolish and eradicate, became bon ton. Blue jeans, football, accented speech, popular culture, women wearing trousers – suddenly everything was possible. These new styles and standards spread through all layers of society at a surprisingly high rate. Possibly, this quick absorption was made possible by the unusually high national integration at this time – the apex of national habitus. All over Europe, standards of the upper strata have remained more inclusive, informal, and open ever since. In cultural sociology, much has been written about the rise of the cultural omnivores who distinguish themselves not by refined, exclusive, highbrow tastes, but by a broad eclectic taste that can accommodate high and – specific forms of – popular culture. (Peterson & Kern 1996, Warde et al. 2007)

Simultaneously, a process of ‘informalisation’ occurred (Elchardus & de Keere 2010; Wouters 2007). This development is related to the spread of egalitarianism and individualisation: more space to shape one’s life without pressure from communities and institutions. This informal and egalitarian ethos spread, at a high rate, top down (yet unplanned), through all western societies, but with a distinct national colouring (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2002; Halman et al. 2005; Wouters 2007). This new habitus has often been characterised in paradoxical terms: ‘Being yourself’ as a norm. Spontaneity as commandment. Social pressure to be ‘loose’. Individual authenticity as collective ideal. The obligation to be free. Self-actualisation as imperative.

With this new ethos comes a strong sensitivity to power difference and feelings of superiority. If all people are ‘equal’ and ‘themselves’, nobody is better than any one else. Placing your own styles, tastes, standards, behaviour or preferences above those of others is not done. Telling others what to do, or what is right, is even more awkward. Such display of power evokes discomfort and resistance.

Consequently, trickle down is faltering. An informal, egalitarian, complaisant elite is hard to imitate. For the uninitiated, attributes of status may be near impossible to identify – moreover, when prompted, status will be downplayed and adamantly denied. Seen from below, there is no necessity or pressure to adapt to the upper strata. The discomfort about status differences makes conscious passing on of standards – educating and civilising people, teaching them norms and values – a complicated affair. After all: what can one base one’s authority on in these informal times?

What does this mean for the formation of national habitus? Previously, the structure of national societies was rather like a clearly stratified grid with sharply defined outer boundaries. Nowadays, it is more like a pile of clumsily stacked plates. Vertical relations are somewhat disorderly, outer boundaries are porous, and the relation between the layers is sometimes precarious. This dissolution of the traditional, vertical, patriarchal nation state comes with a risk: growing distance between social strata.

Egalitarianism is not the same as equality. The informal, egalitarian ethos has not ended inequality but rather obfuscated it. As a consequence of this veiled status politics, one of the main engines of national habitus formation falters: trickle down. Hence, similarities between social groups are diminishing, resulting in a growing distance and avoidance between higher and lower social strata.

Informal, egalitarian codes lead to subtle forms of exclusion. Even when, in principle, all tastes are of equal worth and everyone is informal not all informalities are equal. The informality of a party of academics, even when it is getting late, there has been too much wine, and someone – stiffly, of course, a little awkwardly – does a little dance, still isn’t quite the same as the informality of a party of construction workers or cocktail waitresses. From below, for the non-initiated, this difference may be hard to read. In lower social strata, too, people have embraced the adage that no taste, standard, practice is better than the other. At first glance there seems no need for adaptation to the standards and styles of the better off: the power distance seems small, the norm is ‘being yourself’. Hence, there is little ground for shame or discomfort about one’s own practices and preferences.

This does not mean that status differences have disappeared. Today, status is marked in subtle, almost misleading ways. Take the omnivorous taste. If the professor, the politician, and the priest all love football matches, detective novels, and popular music, it may seem as if everything is allowed. But there are subtle differences: you can love the right, or the just slightly wrong pop culture, in a right, or just slightly wrong way. Thus, social boundaries often stay intact.

At the high end of the social hierarchy, people often have a better view of these dynamics. But the unease about status differences and feelings of superiority make class and status differences increasingly uncomfortable. As Goudsblom (1998: 108) wrote: ‘Being the inferior has always been painful; now being the superior has become painful, too.’ The consequence of the unease is social avoidance.

The nation-state, with all its paternalism and hierarchy, brought about mutual adaptation between social strata. Identification increased, because people tend to like whom they are like. Thus the nation-state promoted social solidarity, responsibility, and emancipatory endeavours. Inversely, growing difference and diversity leads to growing distance. Many studies now point to an increasing distance between people of higher and lower social strata. Researchers have found growing divergence in values, lifestyles, religious experience, voting behaviour in the Netherlands between highly educated and those without tertiary education (Achterberg & Houtman 2009; Houtman et al. 2008). A recent report about the decline in social mobility brought together many findings showing how Dutch people on either side of this educational dividing line increasingly live in different worlds, with different values, pastimes, living arrangements and health conditions (Tolsma & Wolbers 2010).

Globalisation reinforces this process of growing social distance between groups. Some groups, especially the wealthier and more educated, are increasingly international; while most less educated or less well off are nationally and locally oriented (Weenink 2008). Thus a cosmopolitan upper stratum emerges, looking to and emulating the standards and practices of the transnational field. Here the trickle down mechanism still plays a role, increasingly so. From top to bottom at a global level often means: from the centre to the periphery (Kuipers & de Kloet 2009).

Take language politics, traditionally a uniquely national affair. Today, everywhere in Europe, even more in the Netherlands, English is becoming the language of academia. This is an adaptation to transnational standards by upward-gazing national elites. Internally, however, this enlarges social distances. The elites’ move towards English is highly cosmopolitan, and quite rational from the perspectives of academics, students, and universities. But it also is a strong signal towards the people with little or no command of English: mostly older and less educated people. It is an especially strong signal towards migrants and their descendants, who everywhere in Europe are under great pressure to learn the national languages the elites are increasingly writing off.

Again, the bicycle aptly illustrates this increasing divergence. As noted above, cycling in the Netherlands is widespread. Many immigrants and their descendants have adopted the bike – although not as universally as the natives (Harms 2010). When guest workers first started to arrive, many local volunteers offered cycling lessons – in the 1970s to the men, after the 1980s to their wives and children who joined them. Yet, the gap between the more and less educated is growing. The typical Dutch cyclist now is highly educated and over 25 (O+S 2011; Pelzer 2010). In a striking contrast with usual patterns in 20th century Europe and in swiftly developing nations like China, the well off cycle, whereas the less well off, both native Dutch and immigrants and their descendants, take the car (or the scooter).

Simultaneously, green, urban, cosmopolitans increasingly embrace cycling – in the Netherlands as in other Western nations. Bike-paths are prominent among the ‘amenities’ Richard Florida advises city planners to create to lure the ‘creative class’. This international symbolism is superimposed on the Dutch cultural pattern. Thus, the meaning of cycling in Dutch society gradually changes: from unreflexive, collective unpretentiousness, it appears to become yet another hard-to-read symbol of the informal exclusiveness typical of today’s upper middle-classes. Cycling becomes self-conscious lifestyle, rather than unselfconscious habit.

Finally, the fourth process: formation of national habitus by production of national we-feelings. Because of the growing diversity and social distance, the symbols, stories and rituals binding the nation threaten to lose their self-evidence. Here, too, unselfconscious habits are pushed into consciousness, requiring explication. Throughout Europe, concerns about the loss of national identity have led to heated debates, and the rise of new nationalisms. In particular in the Netherlands and Denmark – another homogeneous, egalitarian, cycling-prone nation-state – nationalist parties have quickly gained political power in the early 21st century. Although these parties focus on immigrants, their ascent is the result of migration and globalization as well as internal national developments: the breakdown of trickle down and growing distance between social strata.

National identification often is a side effect of national integration. However, objective similarity and identification do not co-occur automatically. The United States are a case in point: a diverse nation because of its migration history, but also because there never was one national elite capable of setting the national standard (Mennell 2007). Instead, strong national stories, rituals, symbols – often regarded somewhat mockingly by Europeans – have encouraged the formation of national identity.

Small, relatively homogeneous countries like the Netherlands (or Denmark) could afford to disparage orchestrated expressions of national identity. The decline of national similarities and the increase of social distance make national identification less self-evident. This has led to a quest for new national symbols. Local and national governments reluctantly oblige (Verkaaik 2010).

The heated European debates about national identity are manifestations of the fourth process leading to the production of national similarity: the production of national we-feelings. The other processes – increasing interdependence, thickening of interdependencies, and vertical diffusion – tend towards less national habitus. This set in motion a countermovement, a push for more national similarity that now is picked up by political leaders in various European countries. The heated European debates, despite their shrillness, also point to renewal: a quest for new symbols, rituals, and stories, now that self-evident orientation points at the top of national societies have vanished. However, the outcome of this political and social struggle is unclear yet – and many groups and categories are struggling to find their own position in this new debate.

Always a potent symbol of the Dutch ‘imagined community’, bikes and their ‘others’ are invoked in this debate. The ‘others’ are scooters: in popular national daily De Telegraaf scootertuig (scooter hoodlums) always refers to young men of Moroccan descent.3 Newspapers regularly report about migrants and their descendants cycling less then natives, or – more optimistically - that cycling among migrants is increasingly comparable to cycling patterns among native Dutch.4 Here, as so often in this debate, the focus on differences between migrants and native Dutch effectively masks the growing rifts and dissimilarities between social classes.

Conclusion: Sociology, society, and the decline of national habitus

The processes leading to greater resemblance among inhabitants of a country have not disappeared. But they have weakened, and increasingly compete with other social processes. The result is growing diversity within nations. With the loosening of the orderly hierarchical grid of the nation-state social variations increase. At the same time, people in different countries often come to resemble each other more, as a result of increasing international exchange. Thus, fewer things really end at the national border, like the Dutch bicycle.

It is important not to overstate this development. ‘Push factors’ towards national similarity are strong, and both the institutional and the cultural foundation of the European nation-states are still firmly in place. Despite the fierce public debate of the past decade, the Netherland still is among the most homogeneous countries in the world.5 Likely, it is because the Netherlands is such a stable nation-state that the changes in habitus formation are so clearly visible, and produce such turmoil.

Hence, this article is neither a plea for a post-national ‘cosmopolitan sociology’ (Beck 2006), nor the heralding of a liquid society made up of footloose consumers (Bauman 2000). Instead, it is a plea for a more historicized, processual understanding of national culture: how and why do people in the same nation become more – or less – similar? What are the mechanisms producing national similarity? What social processes contribute to the decline of national habitus?

The changing nature of the nation-state presents both sociologists and societies with conceptual and political challenges. With its assumption of likeness of people living in the same territory, the nation-state provided sociologists and lay people alike with a clear interpretive framework. With all its paternalism, hierarchy, fixed frontiers, and subdued nationalism, the nation-state brought about social coherence and exchange, solidarity and emancipation. As the current heated debates show, the redefinition of national identity is a deeply fraught issue. In my view, these new political struggles are directly related to the withering of national habitus.

For sociologists, the changing nation-state creates many methodological, conceptual, and theoretical challenges. Growing transnational convergence and intra-national diversity makes comparative research both more urgent and more complex. ‘Country’ can no longer be the automatic and self-evident unit of analysis – neither in single-country nor in comparative studies. The role of the national has become an empirical question, depending on what is studied, and where (cf. Hannerz 2003; Wimmer & Glick-Schiller 2002). Some countries are more ‘national’, more inwardly oriented, homogeneous and integrated, than others. Many topics probably cannot be understood anymore from an exclusively national perspective.

The growing diversity, the faltering of downward diffusion, and the loosening of the nation-state’s grid also raises new research questions. First: how does social and cultural diffusion and transfer happen these days? Whom do people look to for inspiration? With the rise of the individualist, egalitarian ethos: from where do people get their tastes, styles and standards? Not, as the egalitarian ethos has it, from ‘ourselves’. Variations are larger than before, but our frames of reference still spring from our social surroundings.

The simple but powerful mechanism of vertical diffusion competes more and more with various other forms of transfer – in various directions, in various ways, and through various media. Both through media use, and through travel and migration, people increasingly find their standards and role models abroad – which means they can choose from a much wider variety. Although there is much speculation and postmodern theorization about this topic, thorough and preferably comparative research on new forms of socialization and cultural transfer is surprisingly rare.

A second question this analysis evokes: How is the decline of national habitus related to social inequality? Distance between social classes appears to be on the increase, and in many European countries, social mobility is declining. To what extent do more diverse patterns of transfer, more informal and egalitarian norms, and diminishing influence of the nation-state affect social stratification? Does this affect inequality?

After a long period of decrease, economic inequalities are increasing in (many) Western societies (Goesling 2001). In the Netherlands, too, inequality is on the rise (Velthuis 2011). This growing polarisation is often seen as the result of increasing globalization. However, ‘globalization’ is a rather vague umbrella term that may refer to many mechanisms, ranging from increasing international competition and the outsourcing of cheap labour to decreasing national identification on the part of national elites (Brune & Garret 2005; Dollar 2005; Harjes 2007).

In the past, national similarity and identification has often gone hand in hand with growing equality and a redistribution of income and resources (Mennell 2007; de Swaan 1988). The growing inequalities suggest that the reverse is also true. However, the literature on the mechanisms involved in the production of inequalities, and the relation between social distance and economic inequality, is inconclusive. Certainly growing social diversity does not necessarily or automatically lead to more unequal access to resources. The Bourdieusian zero-sum game, where cultural difference automatically translates into social exclusion and economic disadvantage, in all likelihood worked better in the closed nation-states of the mid-twentieth century than in today’s more chaotic status systems. The question under which circumstances social difference is transformed into power difference – and vice versa – is an important one, requiring more sociological study and analysis.

This question about the possible increase of inequalities leads to a final question: to what extent do the social processes sketched here lead to new sources of inequality? Social transformations often lead to the emergence of new forms of ‘capital’, new sources of power, and hence to new elites. Many critics have observed that globalization mainly benefits the well off. Indeed, the growing distance between social strata increasingly marks a boundary between nationally oriented ‘locals’ and internationally oriented ‘cosmopolitans’. Weenink (2008) writing about Dutch bilingual education, pointed out how increasing globalization requires increasing ‘cosmopolitan capital’.

Several other authors have pointed a growing divide between ‘locals’ and ‘cosmopolitans’ (Hannerz 1990; Lizardo 2005). The latter are characterized by their transnational orientation, but also by the informal and egalitarian ethos described here as typical of post-1960s educated elites. This is the group that is becoming most similar across countries, and that has become furthest removed from the ‘national habitus’. This, indeed, appears to be a new elite, tapping new power resources.

This cosmopolitan ‘creative class’ (Florida 2002) is the target group of city branding and planning efforts around the world. The time-tested method for luring these new cosmopolitans is the building of extensive networks of bicycle paths. From Paris to Toronto, from Rome to Krakow, and from Boston to Beijing ‘bicycle sharing’ programs are implemented – the twenty-first-century version of the Dutch white bicycle plan, first proposed by Amsterdam Provos in 1965. Because the international symbol – the shared hobby, and an important political and social project – of this cosmopolitan, green, egalitarian, and thoroughly informalised class is the symbol of status without ostentation, power refusing to acknowledge its power, that the Dutch have known for a long time. The bicycle.

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Table 1: % of trips by travel mode

| |Bicycle |Walk |Transit |

|Netherlands |25 |22 |5 |

|Denmark |15 |16 |8 |

|Germany |9 |23 |8 |

|Sweden |9 |23 |11 |

|Belgium |8 |16 |6 |

|Switzerland |5 |12 |45 |

|Austria |4 |21 |17 |

|France |3 |19 |8 |

|UK |2 |24 |9 |

|Ireland |2 |13 |11 |

|Canada |1 |7 |11 |

|Australia |1 |5 |7 |

|USA |1 |9 |2 |

|Spain |0 |35 |12 |

Source: Bassett et al. 2008: 799

Footnotes

1. This paper benefited greatly from the perceptive comments and suggestions of Stef Aupers, Marcel Hoogenboom, Jeroen de Kloet, Willem de Koster, Tonny Krijnen, Stephen Mennell, Don Weenink and Cas Wouters; and from Stephen Mennell’s efforts in ‘churchillising’ the text.

2. During this process, regional differences within countries eroded. One particular regional culture became the ‘center dominating the national habitus at the expense of other regional cultures – Paris in France, the provinces of Holland (especially the Amsterdam-Haarlem-Leiden area) in the Netherlands, and Prussia in Germany. Regional differences have not completely disappeared, and this is visible even in cycling patterns. In the Netherlands, cycling is more prevalent in the traditionally dominant protestant regions than in the more peripheral catholic regions in the south (Pelzer 2010). The protestant ‘cycling regions’ also happened to be the regions making the strongest mark on national habitus. The opposite happened in Germany. The regional culture of Northern Germany, like the Netherlands, is strongly shaped by an urban bourgeoisie, trade, and Protestantism. Indeed, this region has a rather pronounced cycling culture reminiscent of the Netherlands and Denmark (e.g. the city of Münster, a student city in Westphalia close to the Dutch border is renowned for its bikes). However, while cycling was adopted by elites and incorporated in Dutch and Danish national habitus, in Germany it dwindled as Northern Germany was integrated more aristocratic and less egalitarian cultural traditions.

3. A Lexis-Nexis search produced 25 results in Dutch newspapers for ‘scootertuig’ between 1 January 2010 and 1 November 2011. 21 of those were in De Telegraaf, the popular rightwing daily. In many cases, the article contained additional ethnic markers such as ‘dark skinned’ or bontkraagjes, ‘furry collars’, referring to the jackets worn by many young men of Mediterranean descent. [search conducted December 1, 2011]

4. See for instance: Van den Breemen, A. 'Meester, mag ik voorop rijden?'. Allochtone kinderen en vrouwen krijgen fietsles. De Volkskrant 15 June 2010; Karman, J. ‘Lobby na onderzoek: autogebruik terugdringen, desnoods door hogere parkeertarieven, helpt iedereen, ook automobilist. Fiets moet stad mobiel maken.’ Het Parool 15 April 2010; ‘Raad voor verkeer: Imago fiets en zuinige auto moet beter.’ Trouw 6 mei 2010.

5. Interestingly, this remark invariably provokes protestations among the Dutch. Apparently, homogeneity is not a source of national pride.

Author bio

Giselinde Kuipers is associate professor of sociology at the University of Amsterdam, and Norbert Elias professor in the sociology of long-term processes at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She has done research in various European countries and the US, and has published widely on humor, media, popular culture and cultural globalization. She is the author of Good Humor, Bad Taste: A Sociology of the Joke (Berlin/New York, 2006). Currently, she is writing a book about American television in Europe, and working on an ERC-funded research project on the social shaping of beauty standards in six European countries.

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