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The purpose of the article is to test the relationship between national identities and modernisation. We test the hypotheses that not all forms of identity are equally compatible with modernisation as measured by Human Development Index. The less developed societies are characterised by strong ascribed national identities based on birth, territory and religion, but also by strong voluntarist identities based on civic features selected and/or achieved by an individual. While the former decreases with further modernisation, the latter may either decrease or remain at high levels and coexist with instrumental supranational identifications, typical for the most developed countries. The results, which are also confirmed by multilevel regression models, thus demonstrate that increasing modernisation in terms of development contributes to the shifts from classical, especially ascribed, identities towards instrumental identifications. These findings are particularly relevant in the turbulent times increasingly dominated by the hardly predictable effects of the recent mass migrations.

In what ways do national currencies contribute to a sense of national identity? Building on the insights of 19th-and early 20th-century observers, the author suggests that national currencies might foster national identities in five ways: (a) providing a vehicle for nationalist imagery that constructs a sense of collective tradition and memory, (b) acting as a common medium of social communication that may facilitate the "communicative efficiency" of members of the nation and encourage similar frameworks of thought, (c) creating collective monetary experiences that can bolster the feeling of membership in a national community of shared fate, (d) contributing to a sense of popular sovereignty, at least insofar as the national currency is managed in a way that corresponds with the people's wishes, and (e) strengthening the kind of quasi-religious faith that is associated with nationalism, especially when the currency is managed in a stable manner.

The purpose of the article is to test the relationship between national identities and modernisation. We test the hypotheses that not all forms of identity are equally compatible with modernisation as measured by Human Development Index. The less developed societies are characterised by strong ascribed national identities based on birth, territory and religion, but also by strong voluntarist identities based on civic features selected and/or achieved by an individual. While the former decreases with further modernisation, the latter may either decrease or remain at high levels and coexist with instrumental supranational identifications, typical for the most developed countries. The results, which are also confirmed by multilevel regression models, thus demonstrate that increasing modernisation in terms of development contributes to the shifts from classical, especially ascribed, identities towards instrumental identifications. These findings are particularly relevant in the turbulent times increasingly dominated by the hardly predictable effects of the recent mass migrations.