ABSTRACT
The only one of these variables for which there are differences in the reactions of the respondents of the two countries concerns what we have referred to throughout this volume as the identity component. In reply to Question 2, on average, 68 per cent of the respondents of Thailand and Ireland felt that the nation was very important to them, but there were as many as 77 per cent to do so among the Thais and merely 59 per cent among the Irish: there is thus a substantial gap. Yet this gap has to be related to another gap, that which exists between the two regions on the matter and which was mentioned in
Chapter 2: on average only 46 per cent of Western Europeans feel that the nation was very important to them, while 63 per cent of the East and Southeast Asians feel that way. Thus, not only is the proportion of respondents of both countries who state that the nation is very important to them higher than it is on average for all 18 countries (55 per cent), but it is markedly higher among Irish respondents than it is on average for the nine European countries taken together. Indeed, the Irish score of 59 per cent on that question is the second highest among Western European countries after that of the Greeks, as is the Thai score of 77 per cent on that question the second highest after that of the Filipinos among East and Southeast Asian countries. While there is a substantial difference in the importance given to the nation in the two countries, it is surely the case that the respondents of both countries react in a strongly positive manner to the question of the importance which the nation has for them; in particular, they react in a more strongly positive manner than the respondents of the large majority of the countries in their respective regions.
