Imagine if you would, a nation made up of multiple different ethnic and national identities, whose primary unifying force is a shared commitment to state institutions such as the upholding of a constitution and the maintaining of a sort of representative council. What nation came to mind, some think Switzerland, some think America, both answers are correct because both American and Swiss identity are what I call institutional identities. Institutional identities are national identities primarily based upon the maintenance of government systems instead of ethnic, cultural, or historical identity. Unlike ethnic identity which primarily draws innate legitimacy from shared genetics, cultural identity which draws it's roots primarily from shared customs or belief, institutional identities draw their legitimacy from a commitment to a set of institutions that are by in large considered worth maintaining by the general populace.
America is probably the largest case of institutional identities and it's history was rather interesting. America was never really a "nation" in the traditional sense, the birth of the United States comes from a mix of different groups on the British Aisles. The main divider during the days of Plymouth and Jamestown but as the colonies grew it also became a matter of ethnic division as well as peoples from the Germanic territories, Lowlands, and Scandinavia. When the thirteen colonies broke from Britain in the name of land and taxes and established the United States, the identity of America didn't really change much. Most people within the United States identified more with their states, townships, or sometimes larger ethnic diaspora. America's institutional identity really didn't exist yet as America had something of a confederal identity which really comes to light when one observes the cold war between slave and free states.
This mostly came to an end with the election of Abraham Lincoln as the weakness of this confederal model of identity came to line. Lincoln was very much a moderate on the issue of slavery. This slightly to the left of slavery apathy that we saw with previous administrations however was enough to get the south to jump the gun and secedes. The idea of the Confederate States was primarily to simply force the federal government to tow the line with the dying aristocracy, actual secession came late in the war as the confederacy turned to British and French support. After the defeat of the Confederacy, the Federal Government embarked on a generational process of constructing an institutional identity that was finished in the 1950s with the first wave of this nationalistic fervor for American institutionalism and a religious view of the American government as a sort of protector of freedom and civilization.
The institutional identity of America's institutional identity is based primarily on the mythos of the revolutionary and civil wars, checks and balances, and commitment to a democracy. The pledge of allegiance is like a prayer, the constitution and media are like holy texts, congress is clergy, election season is a national baptism for the nation. The problem is as American institutions fail, it's institutional identity does as well and we can see this in real time. In the 90s even liberals and conservatives alike could say that the flag should be respected, government buildings should be treated with reverenced, and political representatives should be given at least baseline respect. But we see both sides are forgoing these norms that would've been all encompassing and essential for anyone's social life in some aspects not just ten years ago. America's institutional identity is tied directly to it's institutions and the two prop each other up well, the institutional identity gives legitimacy to the institutions creating a religion around them that makes Americans want to participate and maintain them and the institutions give the identity legitimacy by giving the population material incentive to support them. As political violence and radicalism becomes common place in America we need to seriously consider how much value American identity will have in the event of the collapse of the institutions it exists to support.