The Wars of Others: The Effect of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine on Spanish Nationalism, 2022

Yet such conflicts also have important security and economic implications for uninvolved, ‘third-party‘ states. How do the wars of others shape domestic public attitudes?

We explore this question by analysing the effect of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine on Spanish nationalism. Exploiting a natural experiment in Spain, we show that the Russian invasion caused a general increase in the salience of Spanish national identification, but not at the expense of regional or substate national identities. We also find an activation effect on electoral participation and increased support for taxation.