Did Troika conditionality increase nationalist sentiment? Investigating the link between imposed austerity and national identity

Austerity programs have a well-known detrimental impact on health, economic security and political trust. However, less is known about whether internationally imposed austerity translates to a defensive nationalism that may translate to solidified opposition to the institutions imposing austerity in the first place. This paper investigates this question using the European sovereign debt crisis. Using data surveying national and European identity between 1983-2021, I find that the imposition of austerity strengthened national identities immediately after the austerity packages were imposed, but that the effects subsided quickly. I also find that the effect was strongest in those countries where austerity had the most severe economic and social impact. My results suggest that international institutions' attempts to impose fiscal conditionality may end up undermining the identification that they rely on for popular legitimacy in the longer run.