contrary to the commenter’s claim, there are issues outside of the proposed category (religious, ideological, etc. identification with parties in foreign disputes) where heuristics based on national character make accurate predictions.
Can you give examples? Because my paradigmatic example of the use of national character to make predictions is Napoleon’s (failed) prediction that a “nation of shopkeepers” would not be able to successfully resist his domination of Europe based on their supposed lack of will.
That was indeed a prediction driven by obvious biases. But there are many examples where it’s easy to make predictions so clearly true that they seem trivially obvious based on certain norms that are a matter of wide consensus in particular nations.
For example, the same plan for a public project implemented in a country known for notoriously corrupt practices in business in government will result in vastly more graft and embezzlement than if it’s implemented in a country known for a low level (and generally zero tolerance) for such corruption. What’s more, even if tomorrow both these countries were occupied by some third country and had the same system of government imposed on them, in practice the former one would likely still end up with a more corrupt system, since this sort of thing tends to be influenced by deeper cultural factors that can’t be readily changed by dictate from above.
Whether or not you think “national character” is an appropriate term for these factors (and it is indeed a somewhat antiquated term), it’s this sort of thing I have in mind, and it’s easy to think of many such examples. Surely you have often thought yourself that something is much more or less likely to happen in one place than another based on the deeply ingrained local culture, customs, attitudes, etc.
Can you give examples? Because my paradigmatic example of the use of national character to make predictions is Napoleon’s (failed) prediction that a “nation of shopkeepers” would not be able to successfully resist his domination of Europe based on their supposed lack of will.
That was indeed a prediction driven by obvious biases. But there are many examples where it’s easy to make predictions so clearly true that they seem trivially obvious based on certain norms that are a matter of wide consensus in particular nations.
For example, the same plan for a public project implemented in a country known for notoriously corrupt practices in business in government will result in vastly more graft and embezzlement than if it’s implemented in a country known for a low level (and generally zero tolerance) for such corruption. What’s more, even if tomorrow both these countries were occupied by some third country and had the same system of government imposed on them, in practice the former one would likely still end up with a more corrupt system, since this sort of thing tends to be influenced by deeper cultural factors that can’t be readily changed by dictate from above.
Whether or not you think “national character” is an appropriate term for these factors (and it is indeed a somewhat antiquated term), it’s this sort of thing I have in mind, and it’s easy to think of many such examples. Surely you have often thought yourself that something is much more or less likely to happen in one place than another based on the deeply ingrained local culture, customs, attitudes, etc.