The Problem of Sacred Symbols in Pluralist Democracies

We know that respect for traditional symbols of religion and nation historically has been most important to culturally conservative voters on the right.  In this chapter, we learn from a carefully designed sequence of survey experiments that respect for symbols can be as important to voters on the cultural left as they are for voters on the cultural right.  But which symbols are treated as sacred are different on the two sides of the cultural conflict axis.  Voters on neither of the two sides uphold principled freedom of expression unconditionally.  Both demand respect for some symbols, but not others. But the equivalence ends there and should not be mistaken for agreement over how to treat sacred symbols.  The experiments expose a deep and wide cultural divide, where voters on the cultural right think symbols of their own tradition and nation should be treated as sacred, while symbols of minorities and outsiders should not. Voters on the cultural left think symbols of less powerful and disadvantaged groups should be treated as sacred, while symbols of more powerful groups should not.  These results add new insights into why cultural conflicts over how specific symbols ought to be treated can be so polarizing.  The chapter makes use of data from three survey waves fielded between 2024 and 2025 in six European democracies that experienced cultural collisions over symbols at the time: the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway. 

The presentation is based on the first draft of Chapter 1 of a book manuscript with the working title, The Collision of Cultures as Democratic Challenge, by Marc Helbling, Elisabeth Ivarsflaten, and Richard Traunmüller, and supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant INCLUDE #101001133.