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Gal Ariely 2020

Are we witnessing the fall of nationalism to globalization? In his classic Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 , Eric Hobsbawm argued that over the course of time nationalism would no longer be a vital political program and the world would become ‘largely supranational’ ( 1992 , 191). Or do we take Anthony Smith’s conclusion in Nation and Nationalism in the Global Era ( 1995 ) that such predictions are too optimistic and that supranational identities will not replace national culture any time soon? Hobsbawm and Smith’s writings reflect the leading approach toward globalization, which was understood to be the dominant force in the post-Cold War years of the 1990s. The rise of nationalism across the world since the 1990s demonstrates that the belief in the triumph of globalization (and liberalism) was probably too optimistic; an increase in globalization processes does not imply the decline of nationalism across all the spheres – the relationship between nationalism and globalization is far more complex. This relationship is a key unresolved issue in the field and this overview looks to highlight some of its central aspects.

Part of the challenge of addressing the relationship between nationalism and globalization is the plurality of perspectives on how to define these concepts. Is globalization separate from the process of modernization ( Guillén 2001 )? What is the distinction between globalization and Westernization? There is no attempt here to offer any definitive definition of globalization; rather, this overview follows the functional definition of globalization as a process of ‘increasing cross-border flows of goods, services, money, people, information, and culture’ ( Held et al. 1999 , 16) that promotes international interconnectedness. According to this definition, globalization constitutes a puzzling process of contradictory effects on many aspects of politics and society due to its multifaceted nature. It should thus be understood as a process or a set of processes which do not follow linear logic or have equal impact on societies across the world.

The key aspect of this definition, however, is its emphasis on the crossing of borders – these can be different kinds of social and political borders. Any adopted definition of nationalism reflects its inherent tensions with globalization, as the key criteria for any such definition is the nation’s differentiation from other nations and its continuity over time. The nation is a collective identity rooted in past symbols, memories, and values, as well as a group that projects into the future. It links symbols, memories, and values to a specific territory while distinguishing itself from other nations ( Guibernau 2001 ). Accordingly, it is clear that the nation requires some type of borders while globalization is the process challenging these borders. It is no wonder then that the dominant view in the field is that nationalism and globalization are an inherent contradiction.

Nationalism and Globalization as Contradictions The influence of globalization on nationalism is subject to dispute ( Calhoun 2007 ; Delanty & Kumar 2006 ; Guibernau 2001 ; Halikiopoulou & Vasilopoulou 2011 ; Holton 2011 ; Pryke 2009 ; Roudometof 2014 ; Smith 2007 ; Tønnesson 2004 ). Of the two dominant interpretations – one argues that globalization undermining nationalism while the other is more skeptical, arguing that globalization might, in fact, reinforce nationalism.

Globalization undermines national identity due to the fact that the cross-border flow of information makes it harder for any single national identity to retain its unique significance and distinguish itself from other national identities. In the global village, the ability to produce and maintain a homogenous national identity is challenged as people become global consumers of goods and information; in a wired world, the government no longer has the exclusive capacity to exert cultural control over its citizens and territory (e.g. Barber 2003 ; Guibernau 2001 ; Calhoun 2007 ). The effects of globalization on nationalism are not only in the sphere of culture and identity but also in politics and the economy. The increased participation in international organizations and supranational bodies undermine the function of the nation state. Similarly, the increased relevance of international trade and economic interdependencies challenge the functions of the nation state in allocating resources. These processes therefore reduce the nationalist orientations of citizens.

Although the impact of globalization has long been a subject of study in general, theorists of nationalism have only recently begun to investigate its impact ( Delanty & Kumar 2006 ). The customary distinction between modernist and primordial theories of nationalism is also reflected in their conflicting interpretations of the influence of globalization on national identity ( Kaldor 2004 ; Tønnesson 2004 ). The modernist approach posits that nationalism is the product of a specific historical period – modernity – rather than constituting a permanent feature of human society. Consequently, the transformation of social, economic, and political aspects of modern society under globalization changes the meaning of nationalism as an instrument of mass identification and mobilization. Hobsbawm ( 1992 ) argued that nationalism had become less important and predicted that, over the course of time, it would no longer be a vital political program. Fifteen years later, he reached the same conclusion, claiming that the emergence of national movements and national claims since the 1990s had not undermined his contention that nationalism’s role as the main force shaping politics was decreasing ( Hobsbawm 2007 ).

The primordial account of nationalism, on the other hand, emphasizes that nations are neither a modern phenomenon nor social constructs created by changing circumstances, as the modernist approach argues. Rather, nationalism represents the importance of identity and belonging that reaches way further back than the modern period ( Horowitz 2004 ). A variation of the primordial account, as develop by Smith, combine the acknowledgement of modernity for national mobilization while asserting that nationalism also embodies pre-existing ethnic traditions ( Smith 1995 ); in other words, nationalism has deeper roots in human society than the modern approach would suggest. The transformation of social, economic, and political aspects of human society under globalization does not, therefore, eradicate nationalism. Smith concluded Nation and Nationalism in the Global Era by rejecting the modernist approach and suggesting:

It would be folly to predict an early supersession of nationalism and an imminent transcendence of the nation.…For a global culture seems unable to offer the qualities of collective faith, dignity and hope that only a ‘religious surrogate’ with its promise of a territorial cultural community across the generations can provide. ( Smith 1995 , 160)

In a later account, Smith argued not only that global culture cannot replace national culture but that national identity can, in fact, withstand the force of globalization. While the existence of culturally diverse waves of immigrants has, according to Smith, reshaped the meaning of national identity, this process also leads members of the nation to reflect on their national identity and reinforce its meaning and functions for the nation. He therefore maintains that, despite globalization, ‘self-reflective and self-celebrating communities, nations and nationalism are still very much alive’ ( Smith 2007 , 30).

Others view the continuation of national identity in a globalized world as a consequence of the necessity to organize public life. According to Calhoun’s ( 2007 ) influential perspective, national identity organizes ordinary people’s ‘sense of belonging’ and globalization makes the sense of belonging even more important than previously.

From the perspective of global history, nationalism is not a simple reaction to globalization nor is it independent from global connectedness. Instead, nationalism has emerged in tandem with globalization. It is not an opposition to the global processes but it is ‘inherent element of certain political or social projects to manage global flows’ ( Middell 2019 , 154).

Nationalism and Globalization: Differential Effects Beyond the conclusive perspectives on the contradiction between nationalism and globalization, there are also those that focus on globalization’s differential impact, i.e., the way in which it influences different segments of society in different ways. While globalization may thus push some citizens toward cosmopolitanism, other groups develop ‘resistance identities’ ( Castells 2011 ) that reinforce national feelings. National identity can serve as a counterforce against the destabilization of people’s sense of security induced by globalization, functioning as a set of stories and beliefs that are particular powerful ‘because of their ability to convey a picture of security, stability, and simple answers’ ( Kinnvall 2004 , 742).

Globalization has created a new conflict between ‘winners’ and ‘losers,’ with the former enjoying the benefits created by the opening up of borders and the latter possessing less resources (such as education) to cope with the impact of globalization on their status in the labor market and their earnings prospects ( Kriesi et al. 2006 ). This distinction between the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ from globalization can be located across economic or cultural spheres. Economic ‘losers’ are those who find themselves in increasing competition in the labor market with immigrants. Such competition is common among the less educated because migrants tend to search for jobs in similar sectors of the economy. Where there is a lack of welfare protection, there is growing nationalism and increased voting for the far right ( Swank & Betz 2003 ; Vlandas & Halikiopoulou 2019 ). Likewise, in the cultural sphere, there is evidence of competition in the face of growing globalization and immigration. This is not a competition over jobs or welfare resources; instead, it is a competition between the dominant national identity and rising diversity. This results in a sort of cultural backlash that causes the ‘losers’ from globalization to increase their support for populist leaders who promise to make their countries ‘great again’ ( Norris & Inglehart 2019 ). The question of the extent to which economic or cultural factors are responsible for the gaps between the ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ from globalization is open to debate. Nevertheless, it is clear that ‘the central psychological consequence of globalization is that it results in transformations in identity, that is, in how people think about themselves in relation to the social environment’ ( Arnett 2002 , 777). It is therefore little wonder that members of this lower social strata view globalization as a threat to their status and their national identity, which, in turn, leads to an increase in nationalistic feelings. This scenario is talked up by the far right as part of their effort to mobilize support – and intensify national sentiment – among those who attribute their (economic and cultural) losses to globalization. According to this perspective, globalization influences people in different ways depending on their status and their nationalist feelings.

Another take on this issue is through the concept of glocalization. Glocalization is, in short, the way in which global processes are transformed according to the local context. As Roudometof argued:

If globalization accounts for the cultural uniformity of the formal aspects of nationhood, glocalization is about realizing (and accounting for) the specificity and ‘uniqueness’ of each national experience. Glocalization is involved in nation formation precisely because the purely formal elements of nationhood are clearly insufficient to differentiate one nation from the other. ( Roudometof 2014 , 25)

The local context can differ between the different segments of society which may have varying reactions toward the process of globalization due to their social status and the extent to which they view themselves as winning or losing from globalization.

The theoretical arguments can thus be seen to support various views of globalization and its effect on national identity. While globalization may reduce the relevance of national identity, it may also create a nationalist backlash which affects people in different ways. Any consideration of the effect of globalization on national identity must therefore consider the multidimensionality of national identity as the well as the complex psychological aspects of identity ( Reese et al. 2019 ).

Nationalism and Globalization: Empirical Findings In addition to the various theoretical views concerning the relationship between nationalism and globalization, there have been growing research efforts to assess the impact of globalization empirically. Given the multidimensionality of both nationalism and globalization, it is not surprising that these studies – whether conducted in a single nation or across several – have produced mixed results. In Germany, for example, a study conducted among German citizens found that people with greater exposure to globalization (in terms of experiences of border crossing and transnational social relations) are more likely to adopt cosmopolitan attitudes toward foreigners and global governance than those with less exposure ( Mau et al. 2008 ). In Britain, the younger generation was found less attached to and less proud of their country than the older generation ( Tilley & Heath 2007 ). While this may be due to greater exposure and a more positive attitude toward globalization, it may also represent a life-cycle effect; in other words, no decline in national identity has actually taken place ( Jung 2008 ). In Australia, globalization has been shown to influence both people’s conceptions of their national identity and their perceptions of the indigenous population as an integral part of the nation ( Moran 2005 ). While such studies support the argument that globalization has an impact on national identity, other studies have suggested that this influence is relatively limited. For example, a longitudinal study of cosmopolitan orientations among Swedish citizens found, conversely, that protectionist attitudes tended to emerge ( Olofsson & Öhman 2007 ).

Although most studies have focused on single countries or on Europe, some have adopted a more global research designs. The availability of cross-national survey data, such as the World Value Survey (WVS) and the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) National Identity Modules and the European Social Survey (ESS) facilitates exploration of the interaction between globalization and national identity across many more countries. Despite reliance on the same set of data, researchers have, nonetheless, reached inconsistent conclusions. Using WVS, Norris and Inglehart ( 2009 ) found support for the claim that supranational identity and cosmopolitan citizenship rates are on the increase, with the additional result that living in a cosmopolitan society is strongly related to less nationalistic attitudes. Nonetheless, Jung, also using WVS, reached a completely different conclusion: ‘It is a myth to expect cosmopolitan attitudes and supranational identities to increase significantly in the current globalizing world’ ( 2008 , 600). Likewise, an analysis of elite cosmopolitan orientations using the same set of data drew similar inferences ( Davidson et al. 2009 ).

By analyzing quantitative (Eurobarometer) and qualitative data from Western Europe, Antonsich ( 2009 ) found that national pride had increased, national attachment was exhibiting a stable trend, and the meanings associated with the nation remained ‘thick.’ Another study combining several cross-national surveys found that while globalization is generally associated with greater support for nationalist attitudes, some countries demonstrated a negative correlation between them ( Bekhuis et al. 2014 ). By measuring nationalism as ‘national pride,’ Bekhuis, Lubbers, and Verkuyten indicated that globalization has virtually no effect on nationalist attitudes among the highly educated but increased nationalist attitudes among the less educated. Such contradictions can be found in other studies. When isolating certain aspects of national identity like national pride or ethnic identity, there are indeed findings that such feelings are less common in the more globalized countries; however, when other aspects, like national chauvinism, are examined, there is no evidence of a connection with globalization ( Ariely 2012a ; Ariely 2012b ; Ariely 2019 ).

Immigration, as a key component of globalization, has also been the topic of numerous studies that seek to inspect public attitudes toward immigrants and immigration ( Hainmueller & Hopkins 2014 ). Among the many factors that shape such attitudes, national identity was found to be a key component ( Schmidt & Quandt 2018 ). These studies have indicated that although national identity is multidimensional, there is a clear distinction between nationalism and patriotism: while nationalism is directly related to xenophobic attitudes toward immigrants, this is not always the case for patriotism ( Figueiredo & Elkins 2003 ; Raijman et al. 2008 ; Wagner et al. 2012 ). Studies on national identity and attitudes toward immigration comprise single country studies as well as cross-national studies that use data sources like the ISSP National Identity Modules ( Schmidt & Quandt 2018 ) or the ESS ( Heath et al. 2020 ). Despite the several studies conducted so far, the interplay between national identity, globalization, and attitudes toward immigration seems to raise more questions than provide clear answers.

Empirical findings should not be seen to resolve the historical or the sociological debate on the nature of the relationship between nationalism and globalization. There are inherent caveats, such as the use of cross-sectional studies, which cannot address questions of causal relations or issues regarding the operationalization of national identity and globalization ( Bonikowski 2016 ). The only definite conclusions to be drawn from such empirical studies is that relations between nationalism and globalization are indeed complex.

Concluding Remarks Hobsbawm argued that nationalism is ‘past its peak. The owl of Minerva which brings wisdom, said Hegel, flies out at dusk. It is a good sign that it is now circling nation and nationalism’ ( 1992 , 192). However, the question remains: is the owl of Minerva flying due to the wind of globalization? This overview attempted to show that the effects of globalization on national identity are widely disputed. While some regard globalization as undermining national identity and increasing cosmopolitanism, others argue that it works in the opposite direction, possibly even reinforcing national feelings in the form of a backlash, or that it impacts different segments in society differently. Given the complex relationship between nationalism and globalization, this debate cannot be resolved either theoretically or empirically using current tools. Perhaps adopting other approaches (e.g. complexity theory [ Kaufmann 2017 ]) will enable us to better understand this debate.

Gal Ariely is professor in the Department of Politics and Government, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Gal study issues of democracy and national identity in Israel and across countries. Gals’ current project examines the question of the Israeli regime from democratization theories perspectives.

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Globalization vs. Nationalism: What Is the Difference?

What is the distinction between Globalization and Nationalism, and how does this dichotomy affect political theory?

What is globalization? What is nationalism? How can we understand the theory of politics in light of this dichotomy? This article begins with an attempt to clarify the relationship between globalization (as a process) with nationalism (as a theoretical position). It then moves on to discuss the relationship between globalization and nationalism in democratic politics. The questions of rhetoric and whether there are material disagreements to correspond to the strictly discursive confrontation are addressed. The relationship between this dichotomy and the field of political aesthetics is then considered, before an attempt is made to distinguish various defenses of globalization and nationalism from one another, however partially.

Characterizing The Debate Between Defenders of Globalization and Nationalism

How best can we characterize the dichotomy between globalization and nationalism? It is worth beginning with an attempted clarification of some confused terminology. Whereas globalization is a process, albeit one of which the terms are severely disputed. The term which might be best for designating those who roughly hold globalization to be a “good thing” is globalism. Yet globalism has acquired such specific, negative connotations in recent times that the term feels odd, although it will crop up periodically in this article.

The philosophical discussion of globalization and nationalism is a new one. Indeed, this way of characterizing developments in economics, politics, and culture is itself quite new. One of the first questions to address is how we should define these two opposing ideologies. A balanced definition will be as free as possible from pejoratives, from misrepresentation, allows a conversation to take place, and thereby justifies our use of these two, opposing terms as the frame for productive discourse about contemporary political problems.

Let’s start with a provisional definition. globalization stands for a defense of the increased fluidity of goods, wealth, people, and culture across borders. The perspective of globalization is one in which we are arbitrarily restricted by national boundaries (and indeed other exclusionary forms of identification) in such a way that our lives are more difficult, and many opportunities for collaboration on shared problems are thereby lost.

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The nationalist perspective, in contrast, holds that national boundaries are not wholly arbitrary, and indeed whatever the status of their origins, there is value in preserving them.

The Democratic Context

To go further, it is necessary to separate off certain subjects and consider if and how far discourse within them can be developed with reference to the confrontation of globalization and nationalism.

Let us start with politics, and specifically democratic, electoral politics. It is important to account for the irrationality of democracy as we attempt to analyze it. There is, after all, no reason to think that the way a democratic political campaign pans out has much to do with material states of affairs and not an accumulation of accidents of persuasion.

Framing the latter in terms of a confrontation between globalization and nationalism is often extremely helpful. Indeed, globalization and nationalism can be understood in this context as two opposing political aesthetics .

Globalization might, for instance, express a certain kind of confidence towards new, as yet unrealized forms of politics, the possibility of politics surpassing its current theatre of national governance. On the other hand, nationalism might make appeals to conserving what we presently have, to the instability of the world beyond the known, national border. These are common ways in which stances with respect to globalization correspond to broader political perspectives. However, it is the very slipperiness of these terms with respect to the political “big picture” (that is, with respect to ideologies as such) that makes an analysis of globalization and nationalism so difficult and so interesting.

Rhetorical Devices? 

The aforementioned way of conceiving of the difference between globalization and nationalism (globalization as expressing optimism about new ways of doing politics, nationalism as conserving existing structures of political stability) might appear to constitute them as, in some sense, rhetorical devices rather than rational concepts by which political action can be structured (outside of whatever attempts are being made to alter public perception).

Certainly, both nationalism and globalization are powerful rhetorical tools. There is a totemic significance to referring to someone as a “nationalist” or “globalist,” independently of any particular policy that might be associated with these terms.

The discursive force is, if anything, heightened by the very formlessness of the political aesthetic associated with these terms. Take the binary we discussed above, for instance, in which nationalism stands for stability and globalization for unrealized possibilities. We can imagine, of course, a conservative globalization that emphasizes the pre-existing relationships between economies and cultures. On the other hand, nationalism can also be conceived as radical and seeking to remodel societies, a nationalism that thrives on—rather than oppose—instability.

Political Aesthetics 

Here is where attempting to demarcate the relationship between nationalism and globalization turns into a problem of political aesthetics. What is political aesthetics? What is the relationship between the political and aesthetics?

Roughly, we can conceive of political aesthetics as the study of politics, its systems, and processes in terms of its aesthetic elements. The very idea of “political theater,” or of the political “text” (be it a work of political theory, a constitutional document, or a policy statement) implies an aesthetic dimension to politics. Understanding the aesthetic dimension of politics means understanding where in politics it is the aesthetic component that is doing the most work.

Given the lack of any strict definition of the globalization-nationalism dichotomy in terms of practical political change, we might turn to the realm of aesthetics to explain the appeal of these categories. The range of aesthetic qualities which can be ascribed to something and, even more broadly, the aesthetic judgments which can be made of it, are extremely broad. There is a cluster of aesthetic qualities which appear to group themselves around the categories of globalization and nationalism in a given political environment and manifest in forms of political expression as an undercurrent.

The Point of Political Aesthetics

Yet that isn’t to say that globalization and nationalism represent their own, respective, mobile army of aesthetic signifiers. There is a sense in which the dichotomy between globalization and nationalism constitutes a dispute over the value of political aesthetics itself.

Nationalisms, in general, tend to place more emphasis on the symbolic elements of politics. Nazi Germany is almost inevitably the first case study for any attempt to relate aesthetics to politics. Nationalism’s attachment to its aesthetic goes beyond a kind of instrumentalization of aesthetic features, but an independent attachment. The idea of doing things for symbolic purposes, the idea that the independence of the nation-state is a symbolic act, is peculiar to nationalism.

Indeed, the dichotomy between globalization and nationalism can be conceived of as an extension of the problem of constructing politics itself. Certain theories of politics hammer this point home more explicitly than others. Carl Schmitt , for instance, held that politics begins just as the point where we can draw distinctions between our friends and our enemies, and the debate over globalization and nationalism is nothing if not an attempt to draw that very distinction.

Forms of Nationalism and Globalism

Although this article has so far attempted to draw out the differences between nationalism and globalization, it is important to stress that modern confrontations between these two ways of thinking are partly defined by their very fluidity.

Liberal forms of nationalism tend to emphasize the pragmatic value of thinking of politics in terms of the nation-state, rather than any deep ethnic or otherwise intrinsic “right.” Similarly, insofar as globalism is often posited as a pragmatic political position, it is also best understood as receptive to nationalism within certain, clearly prescribed limits. After all, globalization is a process that, at least on a globalist account of things, cannot be stopped (or at least, cannot be stopped without other severe trade-offs). Given that, the persistence of certain forms of national organization isn’t problematic per se for those who favor globalization , even if these are largely expected to ebb away in the long term.

Here we can draw the distinction between forms of nationalism/globalism that are more or less “pragmatic” positions, and those which express some other, more absolute commitment. We can also attempt to distinguish nationalisms and globalisms that understand their respective ideology to be an observation of historical inevitability, against those who take their ideology to be a stance against, in spite of, regardless of history.

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Chapter 6. Globalization and Nationalism: the Relationship Revisited

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1 What is the link between globalization and nationalism? This question has puzzled many observers and generated numerous arguments that dominated the debate at various stages in recent history. It is possible to single out two distinct approaches to this question. One which sees nations and nationalisms as losers of history, as a passed stage in the development of mankind which is about to disappear and give way to other structures more suitable for the increasing global interconnectedness of the planet; and another, which posits nationalism as the most potent and enduring political force that—far from disappearing—is gaining strength in response to challenges of globalization. Both approaches, despite many differences, share a common understanding of the nature of the relationship between globalization and nationalism. The two are fundamentally opposed to one another and therefore destined for the relationship of resistance and confrontation. In the first case, nationalism is expected to lose out and eventually leave the center stage to other supranational alternatives as required by the logic of globalization. In the second case, nationalism is not only expected to persist but also increase and intensify in response to and in opposition to forces of globalization. Thus according to Anthony Giddens, “the revival of local nationalisms, and an accentuating of local identities, are directly bound up with globalizing influences, to which they stand in opposition.” 1 I would argue that neither of the approaches presents a complete picture of the complex web of links and interconnections that exist between globalization and nationalism. As the two case studies have demonstrated nationalizing and globalizing forces can be complementary rather than contradictory with nationalist actors accepting, embracing, and even promoting globalization for various, often nationalist objectives. Their coexistence is not a battle in which only one is destined to emerge as the winner and the other as a loser—it is rather a mutually beneficial coexistence of two perfectly compatible tendencies. This chapter explores why such, at first sight counterintuitive, relationships are possible and what its practical and normative implications are.

2 In the often-cited remark by Eric Hobsbawm, the owl of Minerva is now circling around nations and nationalism. 2 In his view the heyday of nationalism has passed and its strength, power, and relevance is not the same as it was in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. Given evidence to the contrary, there is a tendency to caricature this view as Marxist wishful thinking about the terminal decline of nations and nationalism. Hobsbawm’s argument has more subtlety, however. He does not regard the nation as a universal, permanent and unchanging social entity. Like Gellner, he sees the nation as belonging only to one particular historic period in which modern, territorial nation-states emerged. It is only with the decline of nation-states “as an operational entity” that decline of nations and nationalisms can be expected. Hobsbawm does not doubt that people will maintain their group identities, of which nationality is one expression. Neither does he doubt that national history and culture will continue to form an important part of educational systems across the world. He doubts whether cultural and emotional value is enough for sustaining nations and nationalism in the long run once their political relevance linked to the state declines. The idea of “the nation,” in the words of Hobsbawm, “once extracted, like the mollusc, from the apparently hard shell of the ‘nation-state,’ emerges in distinctly wobbly shape.” 3 The strength of this analysis is that it identifies the political core of nationalism and underscores its particular relevance in the context of the existing international system. The flaw is that it somewhat downplays the instrumental and emotional power of nationalism both for the rulers and the ruled respectively. Its vision of the inevitable transformation of the nation-state system by global processes also reads as far-fetched and premature.

3 Hobsbawm is not alone in believing that the nation-state was entering a period of deep crisis. Most of the scholars today, however, would argue that nations and nationalisms are likely to persist irrespective of what happens to the state. Moreover, they would argue that nationalism would only intensify as states face the growing challenge of globalization. According to Anthony Smith, nations have deep roots, they are based on pre-political, cultural, and ethnic identities and their social, psychological, and moral significance sustain their power and explains their persistence. In this view, nationalism emerges primarily as a cultural doctrine, which seeks to preserve and promote identity, culture, and autonomy of a nation. In the words of Smith, nationalism is “a political ideology with a cultural doctrine at its center.” 4 Similarly, Yael Tamir argued that at the core of nationalism lies rather a cultural than a political claim. In her view, “national movements are motivated by a desire to assure the existence and flourishing of a particular community, to preserve its culture, tradition, and language, rather than merely to seize state power.” 5 It is precisely the preservation of culture and identity that emerges as the prime objective of contemporary nationalism in the accounts of nationalism and globalization. This leads to the perception of nationalism as a force resisting and mounting a backlash against globalization and against threats to the “national” community that are associated with it.

4 In the last two chapters, I have looked at cases of two distinct types of nationalism. One was the nationalism of non-state nations incorporated in historic multinational states such as Basques in Spain, and the other was that of a dominant ethnie or a titular nation in a nationalizing, post-communist state such as Georgia. Political, social, and historic circumstances under which the two types of nationalism have developed were very different. Yet the story of the two nationalisms displayed a number of similarities. In both cases the role of intellectuals was clearly pronounced in elaborating the vision of the nation in the late 19 th century and in discovering nationalism as an adequate response to some of the challenges brought by specific periods of history. In both cases nationalism was chosen as the means to first constitute and develop and then defend a particular community. Its appeal was wider than that of a mere political ideology or a movement taking the form of a popular tradition. In both cases, the repressive authoritarian regimes contributed, albeit in different ways, to the strengthening of nationalism, which emerged as a particularly potent political force in the periods of transition and democratization. In both instances, nationalism was a varied and not a uniform phenomenon, with strong mainstream and relatively marginal, radical variants. Contemporary nationalism, therefore, emerged as a multifaceted phenomenon, different manifestations of which engage in different relationships with globalization. Interestingly enough, in both cases mainstream nationalists did not perceive globalization as a threat from which the nation should be protected but instead saw it as an opportunity that is worth exploiting. Nationalism appeared as a force promoting rather than resisting globalization and its influences since nationalists in both cases saw isolation and lack of international engagement as a bigger threat to their culture, identity, and nationhood than globalization.

5 The question is why such an arguably unexpected relationship could have been formed? The answer partly lies in the nature of nationalism, which is fundamentally political or even geopolitical, rather than cultural. When it comes to nationalism, the distinction between culture and politics becomes particularly blurred. Nationalism often relies on cultural arguments and posits itself as a force protecting and defending a particular culture, however it does so through political means and for political purposes. If nationalism were a purely cultural phenomenon, sustained by values of common belonging and solidarity and driven solely by motives of cultural preservation, it would be an isolationist force strongly opposed to globalization and everything that is associated with it. It would also be a force challenging the existing international system and its constituent states that have allowed and facilitated the rise of integrationist and globalizing tendencies. This is precisely the picture of nationalism that emerges in the current literature on globalization. It also underpins common normative assumptions about contemporary nationalism. On the one hand stand opponents of globalization who present a romanticized view of nationalism as a source of meaning and belonging, as a solace for atomized, insecure individuals and as a protector of cultural diversity amidst risks of growing homogenization and rootlesness. In this noble vision of nationalism—as a defender of cultural values and principles of brotherhood and solidarity—there is no room to account for authoritarian, collectivistic, racist, and other morally unattractive features of contemporary nationalism that has marred both past and present forms too often to be ignored. On the other hand, are those who judge contemporary nationalism as a perversion of modern political life, as a form of tribalism that no longer occurs in advanced, democratic states and is more characteristic to post-communist Europe, Asia, Africa and other zones of turbulence and insecurity. In this demonized vision of nationalism, no adequate assessment can be made of its role and influence for modern politics particularly in the context of the existing pluralistic system of sovereign states. As Erica Benner noted, it is hard to deny that nationalism has been acting as a kind of “master doctrine,” that is, “as a doctrine that lays down the basic rules of the game for any movement seeking to gain or hold political power.” 6

6 The view of nationalism as a cultural, anti-globalist force cannot explain why nationalists under such different circumstances—as in the case of majority nationalism in Georgia and minority nationalism in the Basque Country—would embrace, promote, and engage with globalization. Neither can it serve as a reliable guide to normative judgments about contemporary nationalism and its role in the global era. If culture is at the core of various nationalist claims, then why has extensive cultural and territorial autonomy in the Basque Country not been sufficient to resolve what is known as el problema Vasca , ending the conflict once and for all? Why did contemporary Georgian nationalists risk a costly confrontation with Russia, which today is threatening neither Georgian culture nor identity but instead is challenging geopolitical and strategic orientation chosen by the independent Georgian state? Unless we treat nationalism as mainly characteristic to smaller nations and divorce it from imperialist and expansionist tendencies of larger states, then defensive and cultural aspects of nationalist doctrine are not sufficient in explaining nationalism of larger nations that claim the status of regional or world powers. Classical empires may be a matter of the past but there are other ways of projecting influence, not least through cultural claims underpinned by geopolitical and strategic considerations. The case of Russia is indicative in this respect. It claims to act as a protector of Russian speaking minorities in the so-called near abroad and a defender of the Russian language and culture. Why should Russia care about the strength of the Russian language in other countries, hardly an endangered category? It does so because cultural power can be translated into political influence and serve well Moscow’s geo strategic objectives in the area it describes as a zone of special interest.

7 Political and strategic considerations were at the heart of Georgian and Basque nationalist engagement with globalization. In the case of Georgia, nationalist forces in power have been seeking out greater globalization of the country through efforts aimed at Georgia’s integration in Euro-Atlantic structures, incorporation into global political and economic processes, attracting foreign direct investments and enticing multinational companies. They tried hard to carve out a strategic place for Georgia in the global market by positing it as a transit route for oil and gas to Europe and resisting the takeover by Russian energy companies. All these efforts were made in the name of protecting and promoting Georgia’s national interests. In the Georgian political reality, dominated by nationalism, international isolation meant the biggest threat to the Georgian nationhood while globalization offered protection and security and held promise of peace and prosperity.

8 In the case of the Basque Country, the ruling nationalists have been particularly skillful in exploiting opportunities offered by economic globalization to promote their political objectives, enhance their position both within the community and vis-à-vis central authorities in Mad rid, and seek international recognition for the Basque people. Globalization offered them a possibility to put the Basque Country firmly on the global map of tourism and culture and present it as an entity separate and different from the rest of Spain. Basque nationalists have also been one of the strongest supporters of European integration that offered them a prospect of being recognized as a national community in the context which was broader than Spain and offered greater reassurances. Basques are not alone in putting Europe at the heart of their nationalist agenda. The Scottish National Party (SNP) campaigned in the 2007 elections under the slogan “Scotland in Europe” and saw the best ever electoral result. As The Economist noted, in the run-up to the elections, “here is the most complacent and Eurosceptical of political unions, Britain, facing dissolution partly because Scottish voters are reassured by the existence of a much bigger union embracing 27 countries.” 7 The nationalist embrace of Europe, however, does not indicate their wish to abandon a traditional, nationalist quest for power and recognition. After all, both Scottish and Basque nationalists, albeit to varying degrees, are asking for the nation-state of their own in the best traditions of 19 th century nationalism.

9 Using the supranational European Union for promoting and fulfilling strategic nationalist objectives is not unique to stateless nations or minority nationalisms within Europe. One of the earliest and strongest manifestations of political nationalism in the Soviet Union was developed among Baltic republics, which aimed at leaving the Soviet Union and joining the European one. Membership both in the EU and NATO were essential objectives of a majority of Latvian or Estonian nationalists who saw in these structures guarantees for their security and independence and thus the best ways of fulfilling their nationalist aspirations. Elites of other East European nations also framed their accession campaigns to Euro-Atlantic structures in terms of fulfilling nationalist aspirations, including gaining acceptance, recognition, and security guarantees. Romanian nationalists went further and began to promote Moldova’s accession to the EU in fulfillment of their nationalist and revisionist ambitions of virtually “uniting” the two countries in the common union. Romanian nationalists in this respect seem to have learned the tricks of the trade from their Hungarian counterparts, who skillfully used Europeanist and globalist arguments in support of their nationalist interests. Thus, Hungarian nationalists promote the vision of Europe as a “community of communities” that transcends state boundaries and unites peoples with shared ethnic and cultural background. It is the vision of Europe, “in which the notion and importance of absolute territoriality will fade away and the importance of the larger units above the state and of the smaller unites below it will become stronger.” 8 The controversial Law on Hungarians Living Abroad, often referred to as the Status Law was also presented in similar terms as the first postmodern legal initiative, particularly suited for the globalized world in which states have been weakened but cultural communities revitalized.

10 The discourse surrounding the adoption of the Status Law represented a striking combination of good old ethnic nationalism mixed with postmodern globalism. The Hungarian government presented the Status Law as an attempt to restore the “national unity” defined in ethnocultural terms, to undo Trianon, 9 and to unify the Hungarian nation. It relied heavily on the use of national symbols such as St. Stephen’s Crown that infuriated Hungary’s neighbors. 10 The supporters and initiators of the Status Law described it as “a framework for unifying the Hungarian nation as a whole, whose spiritual communities were created historically and developed by a common past and culture, and share a common destiny.” 11 Since the goal of national unification was meant to be achieved by the peaceful adoption of the law and not by forceful redrawing of borders, the Status Law supporters hailed it as the first postmodern legal document specifically adapted to the globalized world of “retreating states” and integrating Europe. Arguably the law was meant to pave the way for the strengthening of transborder communities, overcoming traditional understandings of state sovereignty and citizenship. As Zsolt Németh, the former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs stated in parliament, “The Status Law was designed for the future… State borders are gradually losing their meaning in the course of European integration. The Hungarian national policy is in the mainstream of Europe where the emphasis is moving from state borders to communities of individuals and peoples. The Status Law is a milestone in this process.” 12

11 Similarly, several academics argued that Hungary had introduced a postmodern reading of concepts such as national community, state sovereignty and citizenship and therefore was much more progressive and advanced than neighboring States trapped in “modernist” paradigms. For example, according to Bridget Fowler, Hungary’s neighbors affected by the law such as Romania and Slovakia argued against the Status Law primarily in terms of “modern” norms of territorial sovereignty and equal citizenship. Hungary, by contrast, has argued in explicitly “postmodern” terms, pointing towards an alternative to the “modern” territorial state and its citizenry as the sole means of organizing political space. 13 In reality, however, the Status Law debate highlighted that there is no realistic alternative to the state, which remains a key actor in establishing transnational and transfrontier linkages. It was surprising to see so many people argue that the Status Law makes the idea of a sovereign state passé, when the law was initiated by the government of a state (Hungary), was adopted by the parliament of a state, was to be implemented by the institutions of a state and was to be financed by a state budget. If anything, the Hungarian experience highlighted the crucial role of states in sustaining transnational links that rise above national borders, as well as the way state interests and power struggles shape these links. 14

12 These examples illustrate that nationalism and globalization can and do coexist comfortably both in practice and in rhetoric. The geo political core of nationalism precludes it from acting as a force of isolation and closure that would undermine political and security interests of nations in the context of the existing international system. In this respect, culture politics serves power politics and not the other way around. Even though concerns for culture and identity tend to be at the forefront of nationalist actions and discourses, they are largely underpinned and sustained by political and security considerations. This is true from both defensive and expansionist forms of nationalism. Latvia wants to strengthen its language as much as possible and if necessary at the expense of liberal principles of justice and human, including minority, rights because it needs to balance out the strength of the Russian language and political and security risks that come with it. Russia on the other hand, seeks to strengthen teaching of the Russian language and posits itself as a the great defender of cultural and language rights especially in the Baltic states precisely for the reasons that Latvia fears, i.e. for instrumentalizing culture and minority rights for geopolitical purposes. As Erica Benner noted, nationalism is rooted in security concerns that are specific to the modern, pluralistic system of sovereign states. “More precisely, it is a doctrine about how communities should constitute themselves if they wish to increase their chances of non-absorption in an international environment based on separate, competitive, often expansionist states.” 15 In this system, therefore, building communities with a strong sense of identity bounded by common culture, language, and heritage acquires a special political and strategic value. 16

13 The importance of security for modern nationalism is what makes contemporary ethnic conflicts so difficult to resolve and minority rights so hard to sell, particularly outside of the EU. No assurances of cultural protection, power-sharing, and autonomy seem to be sufficient for ending the confrontation between warring ethnic groups once the trust in their peaceful coexistence is broken. This is the case in relations between Georgia and its breakaway region of Abkhazia. The successive Georgian governments made various offers for establishing an extensive territorial autonomy for Abkhazia with all possible guarantees for the protection and promotion of Abkhaz culture and identity. All proposals were rejected outright and Abkhazia continued to insist on independence and ever-closer alliance (if not merger) with Russia. From the cultural preservation point of view, the Abkhaz have far better chances of surviving as a distinct ethnic group and retaining their identity as part of small Georgia than as part of a bigger and more assertive Russia. However, the choice of the Abkhaz leaders seems to be determined by lack of trust in the Georgian side and by fears for their future security and survival based on the experiences of recent history. In addition, concepts such as autonomy and power sharing carried very little meaning for them in the Soviet context and seem to be completely devalued as viable options for the resolution and prevention of conflicts. In their turn, de facto Abkhaz authorities are closing down Georgian schools and denying the remaining Georgian population the right to use their language. In addition, they are trying to promote the regional, Mingrelian identity among the local Georgians and present them as different, both culturally and linguistically from their ethnic kin in the rest of Georgia. Once again, culture is used as a tool in the struggle for political power and survival.

14 The idea that ethnic and cultural pluralism inside a state constitutes a serious security threat is not new. Many governments, even liberal and democratic, resist acceptance of rights of national minorities out of fear of fostering different loyalties that could be threatening to territorial integrity and social cohesion of their states. According to Kymlicka, the securitization of the minority question is particularly evident in the post-communist Eastern Europe, which impedes the democratic management of interethnic relations in the region. In this view, emphasis on security erodes the democratic space for voicing minority demands and reduces the likelihood that those demands will be accepted and treated as a matter of normal democratic politics. 17 It also makes suppression of minority rights easy to justify to the public and may generate the wrong kind of responses, often heavy handed, in the name of protecting vital national security interests. Kymlicka contrasts the situation in Eastern Europe with that of Western Europe and North America, where the question of national minorities has been desecuritized and the states are much more at ease with accepting devolution of powers and territorial autonomies. He suggests that the same should happen in Eastern Europe—minority rights should be treated as a matter of justice and not that of security.

15 Kymlicka accepts that both political and historic conditions are different in the two regions and explains reasons behind particular sensitivity towards minority claims in post-communist sphere. The first has to do with the legacy of pseudo-federalism and lack of traditions of democratic coexistence between different ethnic groups. The second has to do with the existence of kin-states, which is associated with threats of irredentism, justified or not, and with fears of potential political and even military intervention from often neighboring states claiming protection of “their people” abroad. Historic legacies also exacerbate the problem, particularly when a kin-State in question is a former imperial power. 18 What Kymlicka does not explain, however, is why the issue of minorities had been desecuritized in Western Europe and how East Europeans should deal with risks to security, real or perceived. He seems to suggest that risks are more perceived than real and that states should simply accept minority claims, including the right to secession because there is simply no other democratic and better alternative.

16 Western Europe accepts claims of traditional minorities because there are no particular security risks associated with them. In a majority of cases kin-state factors are absent and both majority and minority groups benefit from the EU as well as from economic prosperity and democratic stability characteristic to the whole area. Even if the Basque Country and Scotland decide to secede and form an independent state, there is no real expectation that these newly formed states would be hostile to either Spain or Britain and pose any serious danger to them. In contrast, if Abkhazia secedes from Georgia there is a real danger that it will turn into a stronghold of the Russian military and fleet, hostile to Georgia. At the same time, Western Europe is much more cautious in treating its growing migrant communities as ethnic minorities and according them similar rights as they do to their traditional minorities. Recent immigrants, particularly from Muslim countries, are perceived as much more of a security risk to West European states and thus the emphasis is put on their assimilation and integration into mainstream society rather than on the protection and promotion of their culture and identity. Certainly policies of multiculturalism and interculturalism adopted by a number of Western states aimed at respecting and accommodating certain cultural differences and practices, while at the same time integrating them into the dominant culture and institutions. However, the terms of integration offered to members of immigrant migrant communities and people belonging to traditional national minorities are quite different. Moreover, in many West European states—including Britain, the Netherlands, and others—that suffered from terrorist attacks, there seems to be a growing backlash against multiculturalism which is blamed for fostering ethnocultural difference and undermining social cohesion of increasingly diverse and pluralist states. 19

17 In this respect, the impact of globalization is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, growing globalization manifested in the spread of certain political, economic and ideational influences can have a conflict preventing effect. For instance, many Georgians would argue, nationalists included, that prospects for peace and stability for the country and the region on the whole are far greater with a greater inter national presence on the ground, including through international organizations, embassies, NGOs, foreign companies, and ideally through eventual membership to NATO and the EU. Even multinational companies and their investments are seen as certain security guarantees that should be courted not only for material and economic reasons but also for political, national security considerations. 20 In addition, as the Georgian case has demonstrated, the spread of international norms, practices, and other ideational influences has a significant impact on national elites and contributes to a certain degree to the transformation and deradicalization of local political nationalism. On the other hand, however, increasing immigration and movement of people associated with globalization may create new sources of tension and pose new difficulties to the management of cultural and ethnic diversity in democratic states. This is the area where globalization is truly challenging nationalism. Political essence of nationalism requires that national communities, pluralistic or homogenous, retain certain cohesion and unity in order to survive and flourish in international conditions that have prevailed at least since the modern era. Globalization, however, through growing immigration, makes the attainment of such unity and cohesion increasingly difficult. It also introduces new risks and security challenges that cannot be easily addressed through traditional defense mechanisms and security policies. A complete disengagement from globalization is not an option because the costs involved are too high not least for the purposes of security and stability. The dilemma for the majority of states today, therefore, is how to continue benefiting from globalization, while minimizing its risks.

18 This brings us to the question of globalization challenging the existing international system and its constituent states. The alleged demise of the territorial sovereign state has been a prominent feature of the globalization literature. In this view, globalization is a phenomenon driven by technological innovations and markets not by governments.

19 The capacity of states to regulate their economies, provide social security for their citizens, generate loyalty and address transnational security threats is becoming increasingly reduced. Moreover, states appear to be pressured into adopting market friendly policies, cutting back on the role of the public sector and accepting increasing liberalization of their economies. As Geoffrey Garrett pointed out, governments “are held ransom by the markets, the price is high, and punishment for noncompliance is swift.” 21 The state of the state is particularly relevant for the discussion of globalization and nationalism since, in my analysis, nationalism is inextricably linked with states and with the international system they comprise. The fundamental transformation of this system thus should have a significant impact on the role and function of nationalism. The question, however, is whether contemporary globalization is producing such a fundamental change.

20 There are good reasons to believe that globalization, at least in its current form, is not so much of a challenge to the established international system and the news about the death of the state may have been exaggerated. First, those who claim the imminent demise of the state seem to imply that in the not so distant past states were all-powerful entities fully in control of most aspects of public life. Historic evidence, however, is much more mixed. As Stephen Del Rosso Jr. has argued, in each of the key areas in which state authority has supposedly been eroded—including the control of communications, economic regulation, and the ability to provide security and protect territorial integrity—history shows that the state’s capabilities have always been highly contingent and variable. 22 Moreover, state borders have largely been permeable and foreign invasions a norm. If anything, the sanctity of borders (with few exceptions) and the respect for basic principles of international law is far greater today than before. This is partly the reason why many small states that once might have been swallowed up or dismembered by stronger neighbors are able to survive with their autonomy and independence intact. 23

21 Second, states differ greatly in terms of their capabilities. It is therefore unreasonable to expect that all states, irrespective of their differences, could be affected by globalization in the same way. National institutions and domestic policies mediate the impact of globalization on both states and individuals and determine the power of state vis-à-vis global economic actors. Governments of some states, especially of the big and powerful ones, are not passive on-lookers of globalization—they shape it and define the rules of the game. 24 Small states may certainly be more in a position of rule-takers rather than rule-makers in the context of globalization but this does not mean that they are rendered irrelevant or their existence is put into question. I have argued that in the case of Georgia, globalization has sustained the fragile, newly independent Georgian state and can be regarded as a force contributing to its viability and survival. At the same time, Russian actions in Georgia demonstrated that globalization offers no protection from power-politics and neither does it make power-political competition among states irrelevant.

22 Third, globalization has often been presented in terms of markets vs. states as if the two are always and necessarily in opposition. Global markets, however, depend on a well-developed set of rules, norms and regulations for their day-to-day functioning. Global actors, including multinational companies, are attracted mainly to those markets that are under effective control of states. States therefore matter greatly in providing the right conditions and stimulus for globalization to work. At a time of crisis, the role of states is even more pronounced as governments are expected to step in and cushion painful effects of a financial and economic meltdown. In fact, what the future holds for globalization as we know it is entirely unclear as consequences of the current crisis and its handling by states begin to emerge. This is a good indication that globalization is a reversible phenomenon should major states so decide.

23 Fourth, state economic policies are closely linked to security concerns. As Andrew Hurrell has argued, the move to economic multilateralism should be explained by consequences of the Second World War and security concerns during the Cold War. Equally, since 2001, states have stepped up their efforts to reassert control over transnational flows of money, people, ideas, and military technology that became essential in the ear of new security challenges such as transnational terrorism. 25 It is in this general context of the relationship between politics and economics that the relationship between globalization and nationalism can be understood. Nationalism promotes globalization in so far as, and as long as, globalization is desirable for national power and security and does not fundamentally challenge the system of nation-states. Even though many changes and challenges of globalization are real, they do not amount to some sort of deep change or a fundamental transformation. In the words of Hurrell, “however much understandings of the road to power and plenty may have changed, the nationalist developmental state is alive and well.” 26

24 The relationship between globalization and nationalism—as described in this work—has a number of practical and normative implications. Firstly, it has to do with the management of interethnic tensions and conflicts that came to be seen as major security challenges in the post-Cold War era. The role and effect of globalization in this context is not as negative as it is often assumed. Globalization has a potential of containing aggressive nationalism that thrives on isolation and insecurity. It may also create incentives for the resolution and prevention of conflicts by offering benefits of integration to various multilateral structures and greater prospects for economic development and prosperity. Most importantly, globalization of norms and ideas contributes to the changes and transformations in the practice and discourse of nationalism. At the same time, however, it can generate nationalistic responses in the form of right-wing radicalism or ethnoreligious fundamentalism that react to certain aspects of globalization such as immigration and restructuring of traditional economies. The challenge for policy-makers is to manage these two types of consequences resulting from the complex interrelationship between globalization and nationalism in a way that best upholds prospects for peace and stability.

25 The case of European integration in this respect is indicative. The growing resistance from the member states to further expand the union has been seen a sign of globalization fatigue from some mainly older EU member states. The Economist found a striking correlation between countries that say globalization is a threat and those that blame enlargement for threatening their jobs. At the same time, those older member states that were most relaxed about enlargement also tended to see globalization as an opportunity, not a threat. 27 The challenge is to balance out dangers of internal discontent with positive consequences of enlargement for the stabilization of Eastern Europe and prevention of conflicts. As pointed out by The Economist, the fundamental logic of enlargement is that it benefits both existing members and new members alike: “If the EU does not go to the Balkans, the Balkans will come to the EU, in the form of illegal immigration, drugs, and crime.” 28

26 Second, the fact that nationalist states and their governments often actively seek out globalization—as well as attach great importance to the effect greater involvement in global processes may have on their power, status, and security—means that international institutions have significant leverage over national policy-makers. This is often seen as a sign of weakening state power in relation with other, increasingly powerful global actors such as multinational companies, international institutions, and NGOs. However, the existence of such leverage does not have to translate into negative power that leads to the domination and weakening of states. It may instead be used to promote values of justice, equality and protection of human, including minority rights. This is precisely the rationale behind the conditionality policies developed by various international institutions that may be an effective tool if applied properly.

27 Finally, demonizing nationalism as an evil spreading war, misery, and fragmentation across the globe or romanticizing it as a defender of cultural heritage and upholder of brotherly love and solidarity is not an adequate basis for making normative judgments about the role and nature of nationalism in the era of globalization. Nationalism, both defensive and expansionist, may turn the noble goal of liberation and emancipation into an effective force for the suppression of individuals, minorities, and even descending opinions. It may easily override demands for social justice and needs for individual as opposed to collective emancipation. At the same time, however, nationalism provides a solid basis for building cohesive polities that maintain their distinct identity and contribute to the plurality and diversity of the international system. By forging a sense of solidarity across members of the national community, nationalism also arguably creates conditions for a more effective functioning of the system of social welfare and distributive justice. 29

28 The normative ambiguity that surrounds nationalism becomes particularly prevalent in connection with globalization. Globalization exposes difficulties in reconciling values of liberalism and nationalism, particularly when basic needs for security and unity come under strain. The growing immigration and the challenge of promoting integration under conditions of increasing diversity is a case in point. The emphasis on strong identity and national self-awareness as preconditions for building and maintaining an effective political community requires that nationalism remains defensive of its borders and puts limits on liberal values of individual freedom and universal justice. Globalization tests the limits of nationalist tolerance. The relationship between nationalism and globalization is pragmatic and will remain so as long as risks of globalization do not outweigh its benefits to the security and viability of the national community.

Notes de bas de page

1 Anthony Giddens (1994) Beyond Left and Right: The Future of Radical Politics , Cambridge: Polity Press, p. 5.

2 Eric Hobsbawm (1992) Nations and Nationalism Since 1780 , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 192.

3 Ibid., p. 190.

4 Anthony Smith (1991) National Identity , London: Penguin, p. 74.

5 Yael Tamir (1993) Liberal Nationalism , Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. xiii.

6 Erica Benner (2001) “Is There a Core National Doctrine?” Nations and Nationalism 7:2, p. 157.

7 The Economist , April 21, 2007, p. 32.

8 József Bálint-Pataki, Statement, Office of the Hungarians Living Abroad. Available at http://www.htmh.hu.chairmannew.htm .

9 The reference is to the Trianon peace treaty signed between the Allies and Hungary in 1920. The treaty defined Hungary’s new borders, leaving 3.3 million ethnic Hungarians outside the post-Trianon Hungary. This became one of the main reasons for disputes and hostilities between Hungary and its neighbors. In the Hungarian nationalist discourse, Trianon features as the greatest injustice inflicted upon the Hungarian nation.

10 See Natalie Sabanadze (2006), “Minorities and Kin-States,” Helsinki Monitor , 3, pp. 244–256.

11 “Proposal of the Hungarian World Alliance” (2004) in The Hungarian Status Law: Nation Building and/or Minority Protection , Sapporo: Slavic Research Center, p. 17.

12 Bridget Fowler, “Fuzzing Citizenship, Nationalizing Political Space: A Frame work for Interpreting the Hungarian Status Law as a New Form of Kin-State Policy in Central and Eastern Europe,” in The Hungarian Status Law , p. 20.

13 Ibid., p. 184.

14 See Michael Stewart (2004), “The Hungarian Status Law: A New European Form of Transnational Politics?” in The Hungarian Status Law. For a broader discussion of kin-state policies see Stephen Saideman and William Ayres (2008) For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War , New York: Columbia University Press.

15 Benner, “Is There A Core National Doctrine?” p. 164.

16 Footnote on Rousseau in Benner.

17 See Will Kymlicka (2008) “The Evolving Norms of Minority Rights: Rights to Culture, Participation and Autonomy” in Marc Weller, Denika Black lock, and Katherine Nobbs (eds.), The Protection of Minorities in the Wider Europe , London: Palgrave. For the arguments on securitization of the minority question, see Will Kymlicka (2004) “Justice and Security in the Accomodation of Minority Nationalism” in Stephen May, Tariq Mod ood and Judith Squires (eds.), Ethnicity, Nationalism and Minority Rights , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

18 Will Kymlicka (2001) “Western Political Theory and Ethnic Relations in Eastern Europe” in Will Kymlicka and Magda Opalski (eds.), Can Liberal Pluralism be Exported? Oxford: OUP.

19 See Ian Buruma (2006) Murder in Amsterdam , The Penguin Press. Also the review of Buruma’s book by Timothy Garton Ash “Islam in Europe,” The New York Review of Books , 55:15, October, 2006.

20 See chapter on Georgian nationalism and the debate surrounding the construction of Baku–Ceyhan pipeline.

21 Geoffrey Garrett (1998) “Global Markets and National Politics: Collision Course or Virtuous Circle,” International Organization , 52:4, p. 793.

22 Stephen Del Rosso Jr. (1995) “The Insecure State (What Future for the State?),” Daedalus , 124:2, p. 4.

23 Ibid., p. 3.

24 See Saskia Sassen (1998) Globalization and Its Discontents , New York: New Press; also Paul Hirst and G. Thompson (1996) Globalization in Question , Cambridge: Polity Press.

25 Andrew Hurrell (2007) On Global Order , Oxford: OUP, p. 200.

26 Ibid., p. 204.

27 The Economist , May 13, 2006, p. 34.

29 See David Miller (1995) On Nationality , Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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The False Dichotomy Between Globalism and Nationalism

• David A. Waldman
• Mansour Javidan

There’s an upside to both outlooks.

Synonyms for globalism include development, growth, and maturation, and multinational executives are routinely encouraged to have a global mindset. Nationalism is often linked to negative things like bigotry, protectionism, and xenophobia. But it also carries positive connotations, such as patriotism and good citizenship, and it is on the rise. This has led some executives to ask themselves personally defining questions: “Am I a globalist or a nationalist? Can I be both?” The answer to the second question is yes, with a deliberately integrative approach. Before making any major decision that seems to juxtapose a globalist view against a nationalist view, take thefollowing steps. First, recognize and explain to your team that it is not only okay, but actually important, to take both perspectives into account even if we naturally lean toward one side or the other. Second, ask three questions: 1) What criteria would a pure nationalist decision-maker who focuses on clear benefits to national stakeholders use?; 2) What criteria would a pure globalist decision-maker who focuses on benefits to the global corporation and the broader world use?; and 3) How can we integrate at least some of the two sets of criteria in making the final decision?

For years, government officials, business school professors, and executives have espoused the benefits of globalization, supporting their arguments with sound evidence. For example, the United Nations has reported that globalization and economic interdependence among nations helped world GDP to increase from $50 trillion in 2000 to $75 trillion in 2016. Another important metric is rising employment opportunities across borders: in 2017, migrant workers sent an estimated $466 billion to their families in home countries. Synonyms for globalism include development, growth, and maturation, and multinational executives are routinely encouraged to have a global mindset.

• David A. Waldman is a professor of leadership at W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University.
• Mansour Javidan is Garvin Distinguished Professor and Director of Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University.

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35 Nationalism and Globalization

Jürgen Osterhammel, is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Konstanz (Germany). His publications include Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); with Niels P. Petersson: Globalization: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 2005); Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2009, American edition forthcoming).

• Published: 01 May 2013
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Globalization is a highly contested concept, and its theoretical status and validity continue to be in doubt. To be useful for the historical analysis of nationalism, ‘globalization’ has to be broken down into a number of less ambitious concepts. The chapter argues that nationalism developed and operated within a tension between the modern territorial state and various forms of transnational mobility. In many cases, nationalism was the opposite and antagonist of internationalism and globalism. At the same time, nationalists rarely lost sight of the wider global arena within which they were acting. Nationalism responded to globalization in a wide variety of ways ranging from the assertion of economic sovereignty to attempts to shape and position national culture within various horizons of normative and aesthetic universalism.

Theories and Histories of Nationalism and Globalization

The theories and histories of nationalism on the one hand and globalization on the other hand are difficult to reconcile. Although ‘nationalism’ remains a contested topic, there is broad agreement about the basic issues facing any theory of nationalism, about a canon of classical authors, texts, and references, and about the possible uses of theory in historical analysis and of history in theoretical arguments. This kind of consensus is lacking for ‘globalization’. The term itself continues to be an instrument of polemics. It is closely bound up with political and cultural diagnoses of the present state of the world. To speak about globalization is likely to evoke the vast problem of modernity. ‘Anti-globalizers’ still deny the usefulness and legitimacy of the word as an analytical concept or warn against its indiscriminate application. 1 Since the nature of globalization is still a matter of fundamental dispute, the tasks of theorizing about the subject are difficult to define. No single body of outstanding theoretical statements has attained the authoritative status enjoyed by the major writers on nationalism from Ernest Renan to Anthony D. Smith. 2 The discourse on globalization is fissiparous, polycentric, and highly susceptible to any new turn in world affairs and any new fashion in the social and cultural sciences. It tends to be descriptive and to avoid explanations about origins.

As far as globalization theory has dealt with theories of nationalism at all, it has limited itself to the question of the expected demise or survival of the nation state. Implicit in this concern is the idea that nationalism and nation state came first and then globalization came second. The first-generation literature on globalization, mainly in the 1990s, tended to emphasize the imminent death of the nation state. At a second stage, more sceptical and nuanced assessments prevailed, distinguishing between various types and levels—the global, the regional, the national, and the local—and stressing the connections and the interpenetration between these levels. 3 Most observations of this kind care little for the historical evidence and do not assume the form of fully articulated theory. There is thus an obvious asymmetry between the theories of nationalism and of globalization. The two of them are in no position to engage in an even-handed dialogue.

Something similar is true for the respective histories. While debates about the history of nationalism focus on individual cases and particular topics and rarely see a need to doubt the established parameters of time and space, it has never been settled what a history of globalization should be about. Debates are raging, for example, about the temporal shape of globalization: When is it supposed to begin? What should a sensible periodization look like? One group of authors, close to the social sciences, fail to discover any evidence for globalization before the 1950s or even the 1970s. At the other extreme, advocates of ‘big history’ detect traces of globalization as far back as the Iron Age. In between these polar opposites, three schools of thought have attracted a roughly equal share of support. The first school is impressed by the unification of much of Eurasia through the Mongol world empire in the thirteenth century. 4 A second school prefers the maritime unification of the globe in the decades after Christopher Columbus as the threshold to emerging globality. 5 A third school insists on the causative importance of industrialized traffic and electric telecommunication (and sometimes also of the doctrine of free trade), and therefore places the cut-off point between archaic and modern globalization in the 1860s or 1870s, with a transitory phase beginning around 1820. 6 Narratives of globalization and of ‘nationalization’, in other words, the rise of nationalism, are difficult to synchronize. An overarching history of ‘modernity’ might smooth the differences, but it remains to be elaborated. 7 The development of ‘national’ solidarities and the intensification of worldwide connections are certainly elementary processes that characterize the past two centuries. But they do not touch, interact, intermingle, or coincide in an orderly and patterned way. Nor are they logically coterminous. Sometimes ‘nationalism’ is the wider concept: In certain cases, nationalism has historically arisen under circumstances only slightly and indirectly connected to globalization, economic or otherwise. In other respects, ‘globalization’ is more encompassing: The worldwide diffusion of nationalism from its European places of origin can be seen as but one instance and facet of globalization. Nationalism was globalized, whereas only in exceptional cases does it make sense to speak of globalization being ‘nationalized’.

Levels of Integration and Fragmentation

Nationalism as a set of beliefs, attitudes, and rhetorical strategies corresponds to ‘globalism’, a somewhat artificial term, rather than to globalization. The proper counterpart to globalization as a particular type of macro-societal change is the formation and transformation of nation states. Both processes can be conceived of as different kinds of integration, operating at varying spatial scales. 8 They assemble larger entities from a multitude of smaller elements and imbue them with the spirit and practices of homogenization. There is, however, at least one important difference. The nation state, as Saskia Sassen has put it, is ‘the most complex institutional architecture’ ever invented by mankind. 9 Historical globalization, by contrast, has produced a broad range of markets, networks (of migration or cultural exchange), and international organizations rather than a world state, a world society, or a cultural ecumene of planetary extent. Globalization is a process, or a bundle of processes, of integration; yet, the integrative density of its outcome has so far been lower than that of the quintessential nation state. Globalization and the formation of nation states are not necessarily discrete and independent processes. As Sassen points out, globalization works through the nation state and often manifests itself in macro-processes within an individual national state and society. 10 Conversely, elites engaged in building nation states have often attempted to appropriate and employ resources from outside the boundaries of their emerging state: economic resources through trade, imperialist exploitation, or, in the post-colonial era, developmental aid, and also the symbolic resources of an international idiom of sovereignty and recognition. ‘World languages’, to give another example, can be seen as colonial impositions. At the same time they open up spaces of communication that increase the capacities of nationalist movements and of emerging nation states. From its very beginning, Indian nationalism relied on English to overcome parochialism and to counter the communicative advantages of the British Raj.

Other levels of integration intervene between the world and the nation: empires, large regions of multicultural interaction such as Eurasia or the Atlantic, or the international system. The modern (‘Westphalian’, to use a convenient cliché) international system contains in itself contradictory tendencies of stabilization and destabilization, of integration and fragmentation. Nationalism, as Ian Clark observes, has in the past worked both ways, integrative and disintegrative. 11 It has helped to bring about ‘great powers’ with a stake in the proper functioning of international mechanisms, such as alliances and balance-of-power constellations, while at the same time sharpening rivalries and aggressiveness.

Not infrequently, transformations leading to modernity occurred in the core areas of empires. Several of the oldest nationalisms and nation states in Europe developed within contexts of a pre-industrial or ‘archaic’ globalization that was mediated through empire. 12 Earlier ideas about English distinctiveness and superiority were strengthened around 1800 during the simultaneous conflict with France and with Indian princes, a conflict that involved coalitions across continental Europe and into the Americas. Confronting France or India, the English (and also the Scottish and Irish) upper classes persuaded themselves that they belonged to a ‘higher civilization’. 13 The relationship between national and imperial integration does not follow a straightforward tendency or rule. The inaugural phase of revolutionary nation-building in France coincided with the construction of (a very brief) hegemony over vast parts of Europe and a dramatic contraction of overseas empire: Saint-Domingue (Haiti) was lost, ‘Louisiana’ sold to the United States, and a brief French foothold in Egypt failed to perpetuate itself. In the Spanish case, by contrast, an even more cataclysmic collapse of imperial dominion in the western hemisphere, ultimately triggered by the French invasion of Spain, did not accompany a comparable upsurge of nationalist sentiments and nation-building policies in the metropole.

The period from the 1860s to, at least, the First World War is unique in modern history for the equidirectional advance of integration at various levels. The paths to nation-building were diverse, but the results were similar. The number of independent or semi-independent political entities in the world sank to an all-time low. Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States were transformed into consolidated nation states. By the turn of the century, each of these countries had forcibly acquired its own overseas possessions. Mosaics of colonies in Canada and Australia amalgamated into vast federations. In Africa, thousands of more or less autonomous units were absorbed into fewer than forty European colonies, many of whom had, by 1914, acquired some kind of recognizable statehood. All this happened at a time when markets across the world were becoming interconnected to a degree unprecedented in history. A spectacular increase in ‘factor mobility’, especially of labour and capital, accompanied by diminishing price differentials on markets all over the globe, has prompted economic historians to speak of the first great wave of economic globalization and the rise of global capitalism. 14 The same period was characterized by the absence of full-scale war between major powers in Europe—in marked contrast to the military turmoil of 1792 to 1815 and 1914 to 1918.

Fragmentation and de-globalization of the world economy during the First World War and after, ending an age of free trade and investment that had easily survived tariff protection since the late 1870s, went hand in hand with the persistence of the West European colonial empires and even with attempts to raise their degree of integration with the metropolitan economies. In spite of the new geopolitical mapping of Eastern and Southeastern Europe and of the post-Ottoman Middle East, achieved at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, empire rather than the nation state seemed to be the appropriate political form to ensure success under conditions of intensified international rivalry, a belief shared by political elites of widely differing ideological persuasions. International anarchy was not effectively restrained by the flimsy agreements and institutions created in the aftermath of the Great War—the Versailles and Washington systems, the League of Nations, or, later, the Briand Kellogg Pact. No comprehensive international order offered solutions to the perceived security problems of nation states and empires, not even the strongest among them. The unspoken moral and ideological assumptions that had underwritten the actions of European political elites from 1815 to 1913 were replaced by conflicts between sharply divergent world views and by a lack of trust in any rules of the game. In the mid-1930s, the growing vacuum in international governance began to be filled by the competitive dynamics of national rearmament. The enlightened motto of ‘national self-determination’, originally intended to help former imperial peripheries on the road to autonomy or even independence, proved its worth as an instrument of revisionist nationalism. Step by step, Adolf Hitler expanded the German Reich to incorporate adjacent areas with German-speaking majorities who expressed a will to join the mother country. In conditions of weak political globalization, a universalist principle was applied to ultranationalist purposes.

The new imperialisms of Japan, Italy, and Germany abandoned the programme of the civilizing mission that had served as the main justification for European imperialism throughout the long nineteenth century. 15 The fascist imperialist ideologies of the 1930s and early 1940s were built around the three elements of suprematist nationalism, economic autarky, and racial hierarchy. While they were intended to resist and challenge the alleged global hegemony of the liberal-capitalist West, they transcended the limits of pre-1914 nationalism even in its integral forms. The insulated imperial Grossraum or, in Japan’s case, ‘Co-prosperity Sphere’ rather than the classical nation state seemed to offer the best guarantee for the security and prosperity of nations that redefined themselves as master races with a self-appointed historical mission to build ‘new orders’. Less aggressively and without overt racism, the Soviet Union, having resuscitated the Tsarist empire in (almost) its pre-1914 borders, followed a similar model of macro-integration at a level between the nation and the world. The Second World War, more than any other conflict in the past, was a clash of empires. At the same time, it led to a military re-globalization of the international system, generating genuinely global strategies, forms of cooperation, and, on the Allied side, blueprints for the post-war order.

After 1945, empires lost their integrative capacities, being overlaid by the new lines of political solidarity and military allegiance characteristic of a global Cold War. Shorn of their multi-ethnic overseas empires, the countries of Western Europe, for the first time ever, approached the nineteenth-century ideal of the homogeneous nation state free from imperial distractions—only to surrender, voluntarily, part of their national sovereignty to new and historically unprecedented supra-national institutions. The new Europe, founded in the late 1950s and growing ever since, was neither a neo-imperial realm under the control of any one preponderant state nor a mere mediator of globalization or instrument of Pax Americana. The pre-1945 language of strident nationalism and chauvinism disappeared from West European politics and gave way to moderate and peaceful bargaining about national interests. Consensual integration on the basis of continuing though less than absolute national sovereignties took the place of coercive integration as attempted by Napoleon, Hitler, and, more cautiously, Stalin. 16

It is open to debate whether supra-national integration or global integration, constricted as it mainly is to the economy and communications, has been the more potent force in shaping the development of Europe from the 1950s onwards. In other parts of the world, the nation state became the general norm and was not downsized in importance by overarching integrative structures. An organization like the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is not even remotely comparable to the European Union in its ability to transcend the nation state. Forces of transnational coordination, let alone integration, are even weaker in Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. The disintegration of empires, beginning in 1947 in South Asia and coming to a close with the dissolution both of the Soviet-controlled satellite sphere between Berlin and Ulan Bator and finally of the Soviet Union itself, led to an enormous pluralization of the political map of the world. Since this process unfolded at a time of accelerated economic globalization, Benedict Anderson justly speaks of a ‘paradoxical double movement of integration and disintegration’ in Asia and Africa since the Second World War. 17 An interesting point about this unsurprising paradox is the relative strength of the countervailing tendencies. The shift from imperial to national integration during the process of decolonization created new opportunities for nationalist foreign policies within unstable regional systems of power, for example, in South Asia or Africa. The nineteenth-century European model of the nation state and nationalism advancing hand in hand was, however, seldom repeated. Many of the new states owed their continued existence less to successful ‘national’ integration in terms of institutions and ideologies than to the capacity of the international system to prevent boundary changes being made.

The self-pacification of Europe under the steadying influence of the United States, which ended an epoch of militant nationalism, has as yet found no parallel elsewhere. The lack of intermediate layers of integration between nation and world in much of the globe outside Europe may also render it more difficult to cushion national states and economies from some of the negative effects of economic globalization. Through a common currency, through shared policies on tariffs and trade, and through the redistribution of resources between wealthier and poorer members of the Union, Europe is in a comparatively strong position to influence the terms of globalization without resorting to nationalist defensiveness. The partial surrender of national sovereignty in favour of an augmented supra-national capacity to shape an emerging world society seems to be a good deal for nation states, especially if they are economically well structured and politically stable.

Nineteenth-Century Nation States and the Terms of Globalization

The constant tension between the national and the global should not be misconstrued as a basic antagonism. Early modern dynastic states possessed only blunt instruments for influencing long-distance flows of trade and for profiting from them. They could tax trade (either directly or, more characteristically, through revenue farming), grant monopolies to particular groups of private merchants, or provide legal frameworks for the coercion of subordinate people like slaves, indentured servants, and convicts. Some types of economic activity such as the movement of bullion almost entirely eluded their grasp. Port cities on the coasts of the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the China Seas were often insulated and only loosely enmeshed in their hinterlands. Even after the rise of nation states, these nodal points of vast commercial networks were difficult to include in national economic systems. It took some time after the founding of the German Reich in 1871 to integrate Hanseatic cities like Hamburg and Bremen fully into German economic circuits. 18 During the early modern period, certain organized private interests, certain regions, and certain enclaves specializing in the export of commodities and people were active in weaving together the delicate networks of ‘archaic’ globalization. Governments were not systematically involved, and larger territorial systems seldom benefited from interactions that were mostly seaborne and had little impact on the rural societies which almost everywhere predominated over the maritime fringes.

This relationship between globalization and the state underwent a profound transformation in nineteenth-century Europe. The nation state, as Siegfried Weichlein has pointed out, was among the great profiteers from globalization. 19 It created legal frameworks, technological infrastructures, and extended spaces of communication that matched the functional needs of an intensified circulation of migrants, commodities, capital, and information. Older political forms like city states or multi-ethnic continental empires found it increasingly hard to keep up with the demands of regular and frequent mobility. Where nation states did not already exist, far-sighted intellectuals sometimes envisaged a national economy as the best way to adapt to a new age of growing international trade and mounting industrial competition. Friedrich List (1789–1846), a German economist and politician with some first-hand experience of the United States, advocated economic integration among the German states through modern means of communication; he became famous on every continent for his championing of moderate protective tariffs as a precondition of industrialization under the shadow of British economic supremacy. List’s aim was not autarchy, but market-building on spatial levels below the British-dominated world economy as it had been taking shape since the 1820s. 20 Similarly, in colonial India half a century later, as Manu Goswami has suggested, ‘the first sustained articulations of nationalism crystallized around the notion of a territorially delimited economic collective, a national economy’. 21 In India, such visions had to wait for their fulfilment until the end of colonial rule. By contrast, national economies became the norm in Europe during the second half of the nineteenth century. They were congruent with nation states and ultimately provided a basis for national systems of welfare. When towards the end of the century the social consequences of industrialization in conjunction with economic globalization prodded governments to offer basic social security to their most vulnerable citizens, the nation state proved to be the format best suited to organizing and financing such novel tasks of public authority. In immigration and frontier societies like the United States, Australia, and (somewhat less successfully) Argentina, but also in France and Germany, the nation state created concepts of nationhood and citizenship that turned immigrants and refugees into accepted members of the vast and somewhat abstract community of the nation. New arrivals from abroad were no longer, as in early modern times, treated as alien minorities living permanently under special laws. They were now selected and administered according to new criteria for inclusion and exclusion. Subjects or inhabitants previously otherwise defined (e.g. by estate or locality) were transformed into national citizens.

Governments of nation states that had successfully removed internal tariffs increasingly felt the pressure to shield their national economies from uncontrollable influences originating outside their own borders. Especially in continental Europe after 1879 and in the United States, tariffs were no longer used mainly for revenue purposes but as tools regulating access to markets. When Western imperial power imposed free-trade regimes, as it did in China or the Ottoman Empire, this was a factor inhibiting the development of national political institutions in those countries. European governments were caught between the conflicting expectations of industrialists, agrarian producers, and the labouring masses for whom the cheapness of daily consumption continued to matter. 22 Tariff protection can be, but is not necessarily, an expression of economic nationalism. One does not have to be a ‘nationalist’ when one cares for the viability of a country’s productive basis. Seen in a different light, agricultural protection not only serves the interests of landlords and agrobusiness, but follows logically from advancing democratization: Rural voters enter the political arena. 23 In no major case before 1914 were anti-globalist policies pushed to extremes. Tariffs before 1914 remained moderate when compared to what happened after the First World War, and large-scale expropriation of foreign business in the name of revolutionary nationalism was first practised by the victorious Bolsheviks from November 1917, becoming a feature not of the nineteenth but of the twentieth century.

Globalization in the nineteenth century was not an inexorable juggernaut leaving no choice beyond adaptation or doom. National policies and legislation were in principle able to influence the terms of globalization. To what extent they succeeded depended above all on the position of a particular nation state in the international hierarchy. Thus, for example, any measure by the Westminster Parliament lowering British tariffs reverberated around the world, while a similar decision taken by the government of Greece, Persia, or Uruguay was unlikely to cause a stir outside those countries. However, this was even as the world’s most powerful country, Britain, was not strong enough to prevent the major powers on the European continent from abandoning the doctrine and practice of radical free trade from the late 1870s onwards. British hegemony was of the ‘weak’ variety operating less through overt coercion than through compliance brought about by obeying general rules (of free trade) and submitting to threats (of naval intervention). It provided an international framework by which other states could orient themselves, while it was vulnerable to challenges by rising powers with a more self-centred agenda. The leading nation states of the fin de siècle did not yet possess a post-Keynesian repertoire of tools for managing domestic and international economies. Still, they did not allow global connections to develop untamed. They concluded agreements on common standards from money to railway gauges and world time, collaborated on the unification of international and civil law, and upheld, through the tacit conformity with unwritten rules, such a fragile though effective construction as the gold standard. 24 Nevertheless, far from being under firm political control and guidance, economic globalization during the six or seven decades before 1914 did not subvert the principal European nation states and the newly arrived USA and Japan. They were, by and large, able to use globalization to their own advantage. The challenge from transnational corporations, those powerful globalizers of the twentieth century, was not yet as threatening as it would become later. Weak countries reacted defensively to globalizing tendencies rather than putting their stamp on them. If their governments were lucky and wise enough, such countries might survive or even prosper on the margins of the international system. Countries like Switzerland and Belgium, minor players in a constellation of Great Power ‘anarchy’, carved niches for themselves where they sponsored world organizations (such as the Red Cross) and offered the services of internationalism. 25

As a general rule, only well-organized nation states were able to capitalize on economic globalization. By the 1900s, many political entities had lost their independence and were subject to the political decisions of colonial masters. For the remaining countries outside Europe, it was an important variable whether their incorporation into the world economy occurred simultaneously with the construction of state structures or at some other time. Japan was an exception in that the economic ‘opening’ of the country was, even during the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, closely monitored by a political elite with a strong sense of national interest, determined to defend and assert the economic sovereignty of the archipelago. After the onset of the Meiji Restoration in 1868, state-building and the insertion of the country into global structures were two sides of a comprehensive national policy. The situation was different in Latin America, a continent of autonomous post-colonial countries. There the entanglement with global capitalism typically preceded the emergence of coherent and effective political institutions. When nation states consolidated from about the 1880s onwards, they often had little scope to modify the structures that already tied their economies to global networks of trade. They saw their task as deepening and strengthening the existing arrangements for export production. 26

Global Mobility and Defensive Nationalism

No other aspect of the ubiquitous mobility that globalization is all about is more closely related to nationalism than migration. In the long nineteenth century, more than ever before, new nations owed their existence to large-scale migration: the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and several others. These societies were ‘global’ before they came ‘national’, and when they began to develop visions of a national bond transcending ethnic and religious differences, this was still a long way from a purposeful nationalism. The most extreme case is Australia: a ‘new’ nation without a defining national moment, apart from the less than heroic arrival of the First Fleet in January 1788, without external enemies and even without evil colonial oppressors. 27 Australians never turned violently against the British the way the Irish did. Until the Pacific War, Australia would not confront a single external foe. In the course of the nineteenth century, Australians slowly developed a kind of patriotic pride, but neither the explicit political programme nor the feeling of superiority then characteristic of European nationalism. Australia never stood at the centre of economic and migratory globalization. Nevertheless, it was a product of long-distance mobility, a ‘global’ nation without a clear demarcation between what was indigenous and what was alien. The discrimination and persecution of the aboriginal population was a weak equivalent to the energetic attempts of the European nations to underline their differences and distances.

Australians lived in colonies, but under a comparatively mild colonial regime. They harboured no expansionist aims of their own. Australia was the terminal point of expansion, not its origin. This was different with the United States, the largest and greatest of all the immigrant nations of modern times. Here, the dynamics of immigration and frontier settlement translated into the hemispheric hegemonism of ‘manifest destiny’, a doctrine directed against weaker neighbours on the American continent, be they Native American tribes or post-colonial Mexicans. Migratory dynamics shaded into military conquest to an extent unknown elsewhere in the areas of ‘white settlement’. Until late in the nineteenth century, the nationalism of ‘manifest destiny’ carried no overt universalist overtones in spite of lingering residues of Jeffersonian rhetoric. A global nation denied itself the task of spreading a global mission. The United States formulated a national vision almost at the same time as this happened in several European countries. The cleavage between the slave-holding South, aspiring to its own brand of national self-definition, and the ‘free labour’ North postponed the implementation of this kind of nationalism until the aftermath of the Civil War. 28 It finally turned global in the late 1890s when the white elites of the United States began to see themselves as unrivalled custodians of liberty, enterprise, and civilization with a duty to spread these virtues abroad.

Whereas the United States nationalized global flows of people by devising institutions and symbols that made it possible for immigrants from many different backgrounds to live together peacefully, the same processes, from a different point of view, could be interpreted as a globalization of the national. For those parts of the world that became major sources of emigration, the national experience had to accommodate the new realities of diaspora. Irish nationalism in an age of the massive transatlantic exodus had a strong anti-colonialist streak and step by step developed a secessionist orientation aiming at an independent nation state. But it was clear from the very beginning that a considerable part of the nation would be living permanently in America and other far-away places and would never belong to the future Irish nation state. Moreover, such states would never be strong enough to protect their overseas expatriates.

Diasporic nationalism assumed many different forms. In the case of Greece, for example, a nation state, however fragile, already existed at the time when the great transatlantic migrations began. Greeks had long been used to living scattered around the Mediterranean. In contrast to Ireland, which formed part of the United Kingdom, the Ottoman province of Lebanon had no militant national movement. Even so, the departure of a great proportion of its population gave rise to the idea of a Lebanese nation spread over three continents. When the so-called ‘coolie trade’ from China increased after the middle of the nineteenth century, the Qing government assumed the role of protector of the overseas Chinese, especially in Southeast Asia. Continuing the traditional concept that the Chinese emperor was father to all his subjects, this could just as well be read as the first instance of China making nationality an issue in its foreign relations. The Qing dynasty itself later became a target of anti-Manchu nationalism. It is worth remembering that, a few decades earlier, it had pioneered Chinese nationalism by giving it an ethnic meaning. In all these cases, nationalism assumed the form it did in direct response to processes of globalization. Ideas of citizenship were sometimes difficult to reconcile. Did expatriates or emigrants retain their original status of citizens of their mother country, or was the host country strong enough to demand and enforce unqualified allegiance?

Immigrants are strangers, and therefore they always pose a challenge to nations that invariably, and also in immigrant societies, have a low tolerance for difference and strive to attain homogeneity. Societies and states have developed innumerable ways of insulating or integrating newcomers. The options range from uninhibited assimilation to strict exclusion. Access is typically controlled through law. Since the late nineteenth century, the regulation of immigration has been one of the most important domains for the exercise of sovereignty in ‘new’ nations. A turning point of worldwide consequences occurred in the 1880s, when the neo-European countries of ‘white settlement’, especially the United States, Canada, and Australia, took steps to exclude and deter Asian immigrants. At a time of mounting racism, ‘whites-only’ policies were not just adopted on pragmatic grounds, but called forth all sorts of claims about the inferiority of Asians and their will and capacity to undermine ‘civilized’ and well-ordered ‘white’ societies. Such an exclusionist vision of white purity and yellow peril became the hallmark of North American and antipodean nationalisms during the decades around 1900. 29

Whenever the state arrogates to itself decisions about racial and cultural hierarchies, the question of who represents ‘the nation’ moves to the centre of political contestation. A racialization of nationalism has not remained restricted to areas of ‘white’ dominance. Racialized versions of citizenship sometimes developed a long time after the end of political decolonization as a result of complex social processes. Thus, ‘blackness’ can replace, as it did in Jamaica, the idea of victimization by colonialism as a dominant source of national identity. 30

The exclusion of Chinese, Japanese, and to some extent, Indians from areas under white hegemony triggered violent reactions on the Asian side. The restriction of immigration was a major issue of diplomatic conflict between the US and Japanese governments in the late nineteenth century. In China the first nationwide popular protests against a foreign country were sparked by the maltreatment of Chinese labourers in the United States. 31 Chinese nationalism has a number of roots. One of them was a reaction against discrimination of Chinese abroad during the years after 1900. This was a stronger impulse than a pure anti-colonialist resentment against the West. It was intimately bound up with the question of ‘national honour’ that has been a driving force of Chinese attitudes toward the international community ever since. The principal weapon of the early Chinese protests was the boycott, an instrument still used today, mainly against individual firms, by anti-globalization activists.

Nationalism contains elements of an ideology of resistance: resistance against imperial rulers and over-mighty neighbours, against economic exploitation or cultural hegemony. Even in a position of objective strength, nationalism is fuelled by anxieties of subversion or, as in the case of Germany after 1904, of military ‘encirclement’. 32 Many or perhaps most of the threats to the national community are seen as approaching from the outside, sometimes from a vast and mysterious outer world that harbours dark forces of destruction. In extreme cases, this can lead to mass hysteria and a paranoid style of politics. Minorities are then treated as ‘fifth columns’ and instruments of hostile powers. Huge numbers of Jews, Armenians, and Chinese (in Southeast Asia) have fallen victim to this kind of purifying obsession.

Under conditions of globalization, nationalist politicians and voices of public opinion face a dilemma. While it is imperative for the well-being of a nation or the stability of a regime to engage in economic relations with the outside world, that external sphere is perceived as a source of destabilization. Globalized China trying to control the Internet is a current manifestation of this contradiction inherent in modern nationalism. Nationalist resistance against what is seen as global capitalism menacing local ways of life covers a broad spectrum from conspiracy theories and firm rejection of anything ‘alien’ or ‘strange’ to a well-considered defence of national and local preferences. The banning of Coca Cola from India by the Hindu-nationalist Janata Party in 1977 tended to the first extreme; 33 the safeguarding of traditional quality standards in food production against neo-liberal legislation in the European Union exemplifies a position of a more moderate anti-globalism. Today, globalization is often equated with cheap and uniform mass production, with aggressive tourism and ruthless exploitation of the environment. This was not entirely different during the first great wave of globalization before 1914. In both periods, the process can be understood as having stimulated a new attachment to local practices and problems. 34 The result has rarely been a fully developed nationalist programme. At the same time, a mild assertion of cultural difference and specificity has opposed the homogenizing tendencies of globalization, insisting on the need for and the right to identity. One’s own nation, or ‘Europe’, ‘Africa’, and so forth, carries with it particular values and forms of life, different from those of other imagined or socially integrated communities. Globalization does not encourage identification. It offers little in the way of emotional attachment. ‘Cosmopolitanism’, based on a general and abstract idea of freedom and unlimited choice, has historically been a poor substitute for the attractions of community life. 35

Nationalism and Normative Universalism

Nationalism has been played out in an ever-expanding arena. During much of the nineteenth century, nationalisms interacted merely within Europe. Apart from embryonic ideas like the ‘nativism’ of a few thinkers in late Tokugawa Japan, Asian nationalisms emerged slowly from the 1880s onwards. In the early twentieth century, they challenged European colonial rule. In at least one instance, the epochal conflict between Japan and China in the 1930s and early 1940s, they clashed with one another. As late as 1945, the various nationalisms had not met on a world stage, although some of them had formed the non-territorial solidarities of Asian, African, Turkic, and other ‘pan’ movements. 36 From then onward, the United Nations would offer such a stage, especially after decolonization and the ensuing proliferation of the model of the nation state. A ‘global nationalism’ has already been identified for Germany around 1900. 37 German nationalism at that time imagined Germany’s improving (and threatened) position in the world economy and the global political order. It envisaged Germany as a colonial power and as a Kulturnation of worldwide attractiveness.

A century later, nationalism has become global in a more profound sense. The United Nations and numerous other international organizations and conferences assemble representatives of many nations, each of them operating within a tension between national objectives and the need for international compromise. The rise of international television has turned gigantic sports events like the Olympic Games or the football World Cups into symbolic spaces where national identities come together in peaceful competition. At the same time, nations are reviving their ‘national’ sports, whether genuine or invented. Audiences in the same countries identify just as much with ‘global’ sports as with national peculiarities like Irish ‘hurling’. 38 Even the smallest nation state nowadays struggles for diplomatic and media attention in a way inconceivable a hundred years ago.

One last manifestation of globalism to be considered in a discussion of globalization and nationalism is the universalism of generally accepted international norms. Before the First World War, such norms existed only in a most rudimentary form, be it as a limited body of international law or as a hazy ‘standard of civilization’ to which non-European states were expected to conform regardless of their own traditions. Normative universalism then grew in the course of the twentieth century. By the final quarter of that century nationalist policies, rhetoric, and attitudes were facing the new and immensely powerful force of ‘world opinion’. Earlier nationalisms, especially if they had a strong political foundation, sometimes attempted to universalize their own principles by casting them in the language of a civilizing mission or, as in the German case after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, of the natural superiority of a particular race.

Such strategies became difficult to pursue after 1945. The norm of national self-determination, first publicized during the ‘Wilsonian moment’ of 1919, enjoys an unprecedented degree of acceptance. 39 Small states are easily admitted as viable newcomers to the community of nations if they can claim territorial jurisdiction and show some degree of cultural coherence. With self-determination comes the accompanying principle of non-intervention by foreign powers into the domestic affairs of a recognized nation state. 40 This principle, however, stands in stark contrast to a new thinking in terms of human rights. The behaviour of governments towards their own citizens and subjects, in particular as regards minorities, comes under close scrutiny by international and non-governmental institutions. Around 1900 or 1930, nationalist politicians could do within their own borders whatever they pleased. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the normative power of global standards of political behaviour increased tremendously, more so in the case of smaller states than with large and powerful ones. Sovereignty is no longer as absolute as it used to be, at least in theory. 41 Serious violations of human rights have caused ‘humanitarian’ interventions, although in many other cases regimes were left undisturbed to commit crimes against their own population. Nationalism has not been cancelled or rendered obsolete by this kind of normative universalization. But it has lost its prestige as a form of politics that was ‘natural’ and unaccountable to any higher authority.

1. For a survey of the debate, see D. Held and A. McGrew (2007) Globalization/Anti-Globalization: Beyond the Great Divide , 2nd edn., Cambridge .

2. For the full range of theories of globalization, see R. Robertson and K. E. White (eds.) (2003) Globalization: Critical Concepts in Sociology , 6 vols., London and New York .

3. R. J. Holton (2005) Making Globalization , Basingstoke, 105–6 .

4. J. L. Abu-Lughod (1989) Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250–1350 , New York and Oxford .

5. J. Osterhammel and N. P. Petersson (2005) Globalization: A Short History , trans. D. Geyer, Princeton, NJ .

6. M. D. Bordo , A. M. Taylor , and J. G. Williamson (eds.) (2003) Globalization in Historical Perspective , Chicago and London .

7. Elements of such a (historical) theory are assembled in C. A. Bayly (2004) The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914: Global Connections and Comparisons , Oxford .

8. A seminal theoretical statement is offered by J. P. Arnason , ‘Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity’, in M. Featherstone (ed.) (1990) Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity , London and New Delhi, 207–36 .

9. S. Sassen (2006) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages , Princeton, NJ, 1 .

Sassen, Territory , 23.

11. I. Clark (1997) Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century , Oxford, 27 . Another important theorist is James N. Rosenau, who has coined the term ‘fragmegration’. See James N. Rosenau (2003) Distant Proximities: Dynamics beyond Globalization , Princeton, NJ, 11 .

12. See C. A. Bayly , ‘“Archaic” and “Modern” Globalization in the Eurasian and African Arena, c. 1750–1850’, in A. G. Hopkins (ed.) (2002) Globalization in World History , London, 47–73 .

13. L. Colley (1992) Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 , New Haven, CT . For a differently nuanced view, see P. Mandler (2006) The English National Character: The History of an Idea from Edmund Burke to Tony Blair , New Haven, CT .

14. J. A. Frieden (2006) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century , New York .

15. See J. Osterhammel (2006) Europe, the ‘West’ and the Civilizing Mission: The 2005 Annual Lecture at the German Historical Institute London , London .

16. J. J. Sheehan (2008) Where Have All the Soldiers Gone? The Transformation of Modern Europe , New York .

17. B. R. O’G. Anderson (1998) The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World , New York, 59 .

18. D. K. Buse (1993) ‘Urban and National Identity: Bremen, 1860–1920’, Journal of Social History , 26, no. 4 (summer), 521–37 , esp. 527–30.

19. S. Weichlein (2006) ‘Nationalismus und Nationalstaat in Deutschland und Europa. Ein Forschungsüberblick’, Neue Politische Literatur , 51, no. 2 (summer), 265–352 , at 267.

20. M. Metzler (2006) ‘The Cosmopolitanism of National Economics: Friedrich List in a Japanese Mirror’, in A. G. Hopkins (ed.) Global History: Interactions Between the Universal and the Local , Basingstoke, 98–130 , esp. 119.

21. M. Goswami (2004) Producing India: From Colonial Economy to National Space , Chicago and London, 209 .

22. C. Torp (2005) Die Herausforderung der Globalisierung. Wirtschaft und Politik in Deutschland 1860–1914 , Göttingen .

23. S. Yoichiro (2001) ‘Agricultural Nationalism in the Age of Globalization: The Opening of Japan’s Rice Market in the 1990s’, in R. Starrs (ed.) Asian Nationalism in an Age of Globalization , London, 34–64 , esp. 35, 40.

24. M. H. Geyer and J. Paulmann (eds.) (2001) The Mechanics of Internationalism: Culture, Society, and Politics from the 1840s to the First World War , Oxford .

25. C. N. Murphy (1994) International Organization and Industrial Change: Global Governance since 1850 , Cambridge, 76–81 ; Madeleine Herren (2000) Hintertüren zur Macht. Internationalismus und modernisierungsorientierte Aussenpolitik in Belgien, der Schweiz und den USA, 1865–1914 , Munich .

26. R. G. Williams (1994) States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National Governments in Central America , Chapel Hill, NC, 236 , 247. See also Chapter 19 by Nicola Miller on Latin America and Chapter 14 by Rana Mitter on East Asia, including Japan.

27. M. Wesley (2000) ‘Nationalism and Globalization in Australia’, in L. Suryadinata (ed.) Nationalism and Globalization: East and West , Singapore, 175–99 , at 175–6.

See Chapter 20 by Susan-Mary Grant.

29. A comprehensive survey is M. Lake and H. Reynolds (2008) Drawing the Global Colour Line: White Men’s Countries and the International Challenge of Racial Equality , Cambridge ; see also C. Geulen (2007) ‘The Common Grounds of Conflict: Racial Visions of World Order 1880–1940’, in S. Conrad and D. Sachsenmaier (eds.) Competing Visions of World Order: Global Moments and Movements, 1880s–1930s , New York and Basingstoke, 69–96 .

30. D. A. Thomas (2004) Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalization and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica , Durham, NC, 11 .

See Chapter 14 by Rana Mitter.

32. U. Daniel (2005) ‘Einkreisung und Kaiserdämmerung. Ein Versuch, der Kulturgeschichte der Politik vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg auf die Spur zu kommen’, in B. Stollberg-Rilinger (ed.) Was heisst Kulturgeschichte des Politischen? , Berlin, 279–328 .

33. C. Six (2001) Hindu-Nationalismus und Globalisierung. Die zwei Gesichter Indiens. Symbole der Identität und des Anderen , Frankfurt am Main, 36 .

34. A. D. Smith (2001) Nationalism: Theory, Ideology, History , Cambridge, 137 .

35. N. P. Petersson (2007) ‘Globalisierung und Globalisierungsdiskurse: Netzwerke, Räume, Identitäten’, in R. Marcowitz (ed.) Nationale Identität und transnationale Einflüsse. Amerikanisierung, Europäisierung, Globalisierung in Frankreich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg , Munich, 87–103 .

See Chapter 34 by Cemil Aydin.

37. S. Conrad (2006) Globalisierung und Nation im Deutschen Kaiserreich , Munich, 319 .

38. A. Bairner (2001) Sport, Nationalism, and Globalization: European and North American Perspectives , Albany, NY, 167 .

39. See E. Manela (2007) The Wilsonian Moment: Self-Determination and the International Origins of Anticolonial Nationalism , Oxford .

See Chapter 28 by Richard Caplan and Chapter 27 by James Mayall.

41. On the weakness of criteria for sovereign statehood, see S. D. Krasner (1999) Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy , Princeton, NJ, 220 .

Suggested Further Reading

Arnason, J. P. ( 1990 ) ‘Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity’, in M. Featherstone (ed.) (1990) Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity , London and New Delhi, 207–36.

Bayly, C. A. ( 2004 ) The Birth of the Modern World 1780–1914 , Oxford.

Clark, I. ( 1997 ) Globalization and Fragmentation: International Relations in the Twentieth Century , Oxford.

Frieden, J. A. ( 2006 ) Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century , New York.

Held, D. , McGrew, A. , Goldblatt, D. , and Perraton, J. ( 1999 ) Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture , Cambridge.

Google Scholar

Google Preview

Hopkins, A. G. (ed.) ( 2002 ) Globalization in World History , London.

Osterhammel, J. , and Petersson, N. P. ( 2005 ) Globalization: A Short History , trans. D. Geyer, Princeton, NJ.

Ritzer, G. (ed.) ( 2007 ) The Blackwell Companion to Globalizatio , Malden, MA, and Oxford.

Rossi, I. (ed.) ( 2008 ) Frontiers of Globalization Research: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches , New York.

Sassen, S. ( 2006 ) Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages , Princeton, NJ.

Smith, A. D. ( 1995 ) Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era , Cambridge.

Suryadinata, L. (ed.) ( 2000 ) Nationalism and Globalization: East and West , Singapore.

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Does Globalization Diminish the Importance of Nationalism?

Globalization, nationalism, and the relations between them have been the subjects of debate among scholars in the international relations discipline. Both concepts have an important position in our contemporary world. Their importance lies in the creation of modern societies and nation-states, and their role in a world in which interdependence has increased. As a matter of fact, nationalism has had a great deal of difficulty surviving in this world, and some would argue that it has become less important. However, others would say that nationalism is benefiting from globalization and is becoming more important than ever. Therefore, to explore the effects of globalization on nationalism and to address their relationship, this essay is going to look at the concepts of globalization and nationalism, how both concepts come to interact with each other, and what the key aspects are of this interaction.

Globalization is defined as the elimination of barriers to trade, communication, and cultural exchange. The world today has become very different from what it was previously, because of globalization. With advances in technology and communications, the world becomes deterritorialized (Robertson, 1996), the constraints of geography shrink and the world becomes more singular and unified (Waters, 2011). Talking about the positive or negative effect of globalization, some see it as a power that destroys the heritage and culture of different ethnic groups around the world. For them, globalization is a nightmare that is happening in the present and will continue for generations. Some effects of globalization can be seen through, for example, wearing Adidas clothing, listening to iPods, watching Western television series, eating McDonalds, drinking Starbucks or Coca Cola, and even speaking a language that includes Americanized English slang (Godfrey, 2008). This illustrates the cultural dominance of the West over the rest of the world. Cultural imperialism is one of the dominant faces of the west. As technology and science developed in the west, other regions of the world started borrowing this technology and thus the ideas and values that originated in the west became the standards of the whole world. In the words of Peter Evans, “Products and ideas developed in rich countries shape the value and ideas of citizens of poor countries” (Evans, 1971, 638)

This dominance has caused some national groups to fight back against globalization and the evil they believe it introduces (Godfrey, 2008). Globalization as a concept refers to “the compression of the world and intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole… both concrete global interdependence and consciousness of the global whole in the 20th century” (Robertson, 1992. P.8). This quote shows how the world has become a single place that is connected in one way or another. According to Giddens, “globalization is identified as the intensification of worldwide social relations which links distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” (Giddens, 1990). Therefore, everything is linked to each other in such a way that it is difficult to not be part of it.

While globalization is not a new phenomenon, recent globalization has involved some real changes in terms of scale, speed, and cognition. In terms of scale, the number of economic, political, and social linkages between societies is greater.  In terms of speed, globalization involves a compression of time and space. In terms of cognition, there is an increased perception of the globe as a smaller place (Kinnvall: 2002 quoted in Kinnvall: 2004). Thus changes in the world have transformed social, economical, and political relations into faster and more intensive processes that generate transcontinental or inter-regional flows and networks of activity (Held and McGrew, 2003:16).

The term ‘nationalism’ refers to the feelings of attachment to one another that members of a nation have, and to a sense of pride that a nation has in itself (Kacowicz, 1998). Nationalism is in itself an international ideology, which can be used to promote and defend a particular culture and way of life (Godfrey, 2008). An example of nationalism is when a person moves out of their home country, yet still cheers for their home country’s sports teams and continues to stay up to date with the local  news. Nationalism is the foundation of modern society and social solidarity; it is also used by politicians to promote national unity and patriotism. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 established the nation-state, membership of which became the identity that is the basis of modern society. Nationalism is proclaimed to be the goal of states that seek to further their interests in peace or war, in order to galvanize public opinion in support of their aims.

According to Riggs, “People become capable of exercising sovereignty only when they enjoy some sense of solidarity based on shared values and customs. This solidarity is reified into the concept of a nation.” (Riggs, 2002). Nationalism contributed to the major wars of the 21 st century, for example through border disputes that arise from the division of ethnic groups by territorial borders . Thus, nationalism has a long history, even before globalization, and it has always been something that people fight for.

One variant of nationalism, economic nationalism, in many ways harms the states that practice it. One of the main manifestations of economic nationalism is protectionism, which is costly for the global economy in general (Campe, 2008). As the world becomes interdependent, the fate of one state is linked and attached to the fate of another state. This is in many ways the basic feature of globalization; therefore, a state that wants to cut any ties with other states is going to fall behind.

When it comes to the relationship between globalization and nationalism, it can be said that there have been three major arguments that addresses this relationship. The first argument says that globalization has diminished nationalism, through increased interdependence and weakening the national barriers between countries. In addition, the compression of time and space allows people to interact more rapidly, thus national differences have disappeared or at least have become less important and noticeable. The second argument maintains that globalization and nationalism have a mixed relationship in which one leads to the other and one promotes the other. This argument stresses that the system of nation-states was established before globalization, and each state has contributed to the emergence of a global system. However, under globalization, the nation-state is still functioning and promoting the global system. The third argument says that globalization has increased nationalist sentiments. This essay will examine all these three arguments, and based on the evidence, will conclude with a clear answer to the question in the title favoring one of the arguments mentioned above.

In the first argument, in which globalization seems to diminish nationalism, John Kusumi argues that, “Globalization is the anti-thesis of nationalism as it suggests that there are no boundaries just one globe” (Godfrey, 2008). The importance of nationalism diminishes, as “we live in a world that is simultaneously shrinking and expanding, growing closer and further apart, national borders are increasingly irrelevant.” (Attale: 1991, quoted in Lerche: 1998). Thus, with globalization, nationalism has lost the power to keep the people of one nation together and draw a red line between different nationalities.

Furthermore, Hobsbawm argues that the peak of nationalism has passed, and that its strength, power, and relevance are not the same as they were in the 19th century. In the past, there were clear national borders, a strong traditional and national sense among the people of one nation, and fewer ways of contacting others. But in our current world, everything has become fast and integrated, to the degree that you cannot identify people and their nationality. Increased contact between people due to the integration of world societies is often associated with more stereotyping and hatred of others, and increased conflict (Butt, 2012). As more people of different nationalities come together and interact, more disputes will be generated. For example, in multi-cultural education programs, there is an ongoing struggle for the presentation of identity claims. According to Giddens 1991, “living with a calculative attitude to the open possibilities of action, positive and negative, with which, as individuals and globally, we are confronted in a continuous way in our contemporary social existence” (Robertson, 1996).  Such interaction can be seen as an effect of globalization on nationalism in which one cannot live with others.

On a cultural level, the world has shifted from national cultures to mixed cultures across the globe, resulting in a homogenized global culture rather than nationalism. The TNCs, which act globally, play a role in establishing the global market, which makes the fate of one state dependent on other states’ economic fates. The development of a global community, through interdependence, new technologies, and even media productions, challenges the nationalist thinking. Globalization thus “Possesses many threats to nationalism from participation in international organizations, loss of parts of state’s sovereignty, to advanced technologies, and easy mobility of people around the globe.” (Campe, 2008)

Another issue is that immigration is janus-faced, in which one face supports the argument of diminishing nationalism, while the other face supports the increasing sense of nationality. The first face is that through growing immigration, globalization introduces risks and security challenges to nationalism (Natalie, 2010). From a cultural and traditional point of view, when more people immigrate to another country, they will affect the social structure and thus they will change the demography of that country, which results in decreasing the sense of nationality. The second face is described by Godfrey:  “Migration of people from the 3 rd World to the Western nations is a result of globalization which resulted in racial and cultural tensions in many parts of Europe and America (Godfrey, 2008). Therefore, such changes and challenges have affected

The protective framework of the small community and of tradition replacing these with many larger impersonal organizations. The individual feels bereft and alone in a world in which he or she lacks the psychological support and the sense of security provided by more traditional settings” (Giddens: 1991 quoted in Kinnvall: 2004).

The second argument is that globalization and nationalism have a mixed relationship in which one has led to the other and one promotes the other. Some see globalization as the result of nationalism, because each nation has participated and gives something to the globe in a successful collective action (unknown, Nationalism and Globalization, 2009). This suggests that each independent nation has in one way or another been involved in making up the globe as it is now. This could have happened through the interaction of trade in old days. Thus, without the existence of nationalism, globalization would not be happening.

Moreover, globalization has promoted nationalism, as in the case of Western social science, where it becomes a cultural resource in different global regions. For example, the work of Durkheim on the theme of civil religion was influential in the establishment of the new Turkish Republic in 1920 (Robertson, 1996). This shows that what has happened or been generated in a specific region or country has influenced other regions or countries in a positive way. which deepened the sense of nationalism. Let’s not forget the fact that nationalism was first established in Europe in the Westphalia Treaty of 1648 (Vensatd, 2012). Therefore, both globalization and nationalism can live together in harmony and  benefit from each other. According to Natalie, “Their coexistence is not a battle in which only one is destined to emerge as the winner and the other as losers; it is rather a mutually beneficial coexistence of two compatible tendencies” (Natalie, 2010). Some examples of this relationship can be detected in Georgia, where nationalist forces have been seeking greater globalization through integration in the Euro-Atlantic structure and attracting Foreign Direct Investment. In addition, elites of East European nations also framed their accession campaigns to Euro-Atlantic structure in terms of fulfilling national aspirations, including gaining acceptance, recognition and security guarantees. This implies that nationalism has been acting as “a doctrine that lays down the basic rules of the game for any movement seeking to gain or hold political power” (Benner, 2001). In this respect, culture politics serves power politics and therefore nationalism and globalization can and do coexist together. (Natalie, 2010)

The third argument says that globalization has increased the sense of nationalism in such a way that national extremism has emerged. According to Douglas Kellner,

Indeed from the late 1980s to the present, there has been a resurgence of nationalism, traditionalism, and religious fundamentalism alongside trends toward growing globalization. the explosion of regional, cultural, and religious differences in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia as well as explosive tribal conflicts in Africa and elsewhere suggest that globalization and homogenization were not as deep as it proponent hoped and criticized feared. Culture has thus become a new source of conflict and an important dimension of struggle between the global and the local. (Godfrey, 2008)

From the quotation, we see that nationalism in the age of globalization is a response to economic and political problems. As globalization is an external force that is pushing on the localities resulting in a diminishing national sense, localities have responded very strongly to this pressure by adopting a stronger national sense. According to Giddens, “The revival of local nationalism and an accentuating of local identities are directly bound up with globalizing influences to which they stand in opposition” (Giddens: 1994 quoted in Natalie: 2010).

More communication and interactions lead to a greater awareness of your identity and cultural differences, leading to an increased projection of ethnic, cultural, and national differences, leading to more conflict. As an example, some national gangs and groups are formed by students in some European universities (Bloom: 1993 quoted in Butt: 2012). The printing press also has a massive effect, as it allows people to express their culture and nationality to others, which allows others to see far beyond their communities and borders. Moreover, increased migration has led to a rise in right-wing parties as in Europe and Britain (Butt, 2012). All of this is showing one important fact, which is the rise of nationalism as a response to globalization. Usually radical right nationalism is driven by party organization rather than mass movements, and it involves more than racism and neo-fascist ideology: it is a political ideology and cultural authoritarianism (Delanty and O’Mahony, 2002, P.148).

In our global world, being proud of your heritage, culture, and nationality has already become a taboo in many respects (Godfrey, 2008). Globalization increases awareness of social heterogeneity because democracy allows people to participate and freedom of speech is guaranteed, so groups whose identity is based on race, ethnicity, religion, language have become increasingly vocal and have used the global media to make their discontent known. After the Cold War, when the state was weakened by globalization, minorities were able to more effectively assert their identity in reaction to hegemonic cultural forces. To that, most scholars believe that nationalism would only intensify as state faces the growing challenge of globalization. This is to say that when the state is weak, national sense becomes stronger (Hobsbawm, 1992).

Evidence shows that in the former Soviet Union republics, new nationalism was born from insecurity and the search for ethnic purity. Because of globalization, minorities in many countries are mobilizing to demand justice and respect, and established communities often resist these demands (Riggs, 2012). The USSR has collapsed, and many nationalities and minorities were under USSR protection or repression; these minorities breathe freedom after the collapse and thus they demand their right of ruling themselves based on their identity and nationality. According to Delanty and O’Mahony, “Nationalist identity claims as a basis for mobilization. National mobilization thrives on insecurity and uncertainty as categories of group belonging become sharpened in the heat of contestation.” (Delanty and O’Mahony, 2002, P.144) This has led to more conflict as new nationalities were born, “National cultures have produced confrontations between Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, Armenians and Azerbaijanis.” (Godfrey, 2008). So as a response to a weak state that is no longer a promoter and protector of domestic interests but rather a collaborator with outside forces, minorities have raised their national voice (Scholte: 1997 quoted in Lerche: 1998).

In globalization, the powerful countries are those who can have a massive effect on the rest of the globe. Therefore, “The effort of the West to promote its values of democracy and liberalism as universal values to maintain its military predominance and to advance its economic interests would only engender countering responses from other civilizations” (Huntington: 1993 quoted in Lerche: 1998). Again, here we see a response from other nationalities and other civilization that feel inferior or less powerful in the age of globalization due to the social, economic, and political status toward the West.

According to Fuller (1995),

Systems of international marketing and communications create freeways for the mass import of foreign cultural materials, food, drugs, clothing, music, film, books, TV programs, with the concomitant loss of control over societies. Such cultural anxieties are welcome fuel to more radical political groups that call for cultural authenticity, preservations of traditional and religious values and rejection of the alien cultural antigens (Fuller: 1995 quoted in Lerche: 1998).

The author here is clear in pointing out how the global system is designed in a way that makes it possible for others to respond. So, instead of expanding of Western cultural dominance, “We are witnessing a contested and decided encounter between global cultural flows and inherited local identities” (Waters: 1995 quoted in Lerche: 1998). On the other hand, Giddens has also stated that, “The process of globalization has a transformative and uneven effect on all parts of the global system. This suggests that globalization is not simply a one-way process, transmitting Western civilization to the rest of the world. Indeed, experience has shown the quite reverse.” (Giddens, 1992) Thus, rather than destroying local cultures, globalization tends to encourage responses through the rise of localities and nationalist movements around the world.

In light of this argument, someone like Smith 1998 would argue that nationalism is stronger than globalization and therefore it cannot be diminished or made less important. He stated that, “Nations have deep roots and they are based on pre-political, cultural, and ethnic identities and their social and moral significance sustain their power and explain their resistance.” (Smith: 1991 quoted in Natalie: 2010). He added that globalization does not mean the end of nationalism. A cosmopolitan culture that exists today does not have the ability to drive people like nationalism; however, the world is witnessing a rise of extreme nationalism (Smith, A. 1998)

In this view, nationalism emerges as a cultural doctrine, which seeks to preserve and promote the identity, culture, and autonomy of a nation. Smith (1991) supports this view as well as Tamer (1993) when she says that, “National movements are motivated by a desire to assure the existence and flourishing of a particular community to preserve its culture, tradition, language.” (Natalie, 2010, P.170) the point here is that nationalism as a response to globalization has emerged as a cultural protector that wants to bring societies back to their traditions and values. According to Beyer,

In response to the modern developments, religious and nationalist leaders may talk about moral or ethical decline by pointing to modern society lack of morality, loss of ethical values, and increased corruption. Therefore, the solution is to return back to traditional values and religious norms (Beyer: 1994 quoted in Kinnvall: 2004).

Now, having addressed the last argument that argues the rise of nationalism is a response to globalization, within this argument lies the rise of fundamentalism. Fundamentalism as a concept refers to those groups who resist not only globalization but also the structure of the globe as a whole. According to Robertson, “Resistance to contemporary globalization, for example the radical side of the general Islamic movement would be regarded as opposition not only to the homogenized system but to the conception of the world as a series of culturally equal.” (Robertson, 1996) Thus, fundamentalism opposes the idea of a homogeneity of cultures and nationalities and provokes extreme nationalism.

According to Barber 1996, he describes the fundamentalist movement as, “Parochial rather than cosmopolitan, angry rather than loving, zealous rather than rationalist, ethnocentric rather than universalizing, fractious and pulverizing, never integrating” (Barber, 1996). Thus, this quote suggests that globalization seems to be pulling all identity groups on the planet out of their various degrees of isolation, pushing them into the current of the global structure and thereby obliging them to redefine themes in regard to global trends (Lerche, 1998). Here we see how globalization has been a direct cause of the rise of fundamentalism through forcing different nationalities and cultures to integrate together and adapt themselves to the new structure. As a consequence to that, fundamentalism rose up against the force of globalization.

Furthermore, the relationship between globalization and the rise of fundamentalism is shaped by the necessity for societies, regions, civilizations, and sub-national entities to declare their identities for both internal and external purposes because of space-time compression. Therefore, fundamentalism is a reaction to globalization (Robertson, 1996). As I have explained early in this essay, that nationalism is deeply rooted in pre-historical and pre-political processes, fundamentalism as a concept might be similarly misinterpreted by different sides. Some see it as a destructive movement to nations and to the globe as a whole, while some others see it as a just a mode of thought and practice which has become globally institutionalized in which norms of national and cultural self-determination are felt. Eventually fundamentalism makes globalization work. (Robertson, 1996)

The Bulgarian national alliance state that they are in favour of establishing a united nationalist front against globalization, NATO, and the EU in its current form, as well as corrupt Bulgarian politics (Godfrey, 2008). This is an example of the extreme nationalism that strongly supports the argument favoring the rise of nationalism under globalization. Another example is the New Right activists and national anarchists who chose the phrase “globalization is genocide” on their banner at the APEC protest back in September 2007. This again shows how those groups feel about the global system and also shows how strong these movements are becoming. Thus, nationalistic groups who want to preserve their identity fight back against the destructive agenda of globalization. In the end, globalization, as it seeks a global community with no national barriers, actually feeds a growing national sense (Godfrey, 2008).

In conclusion, this paper has argued that globalization is a double-edged sword, and that there has been a marked rise of nationalism under globalization. With growing globalization and the changes it has brought to the world, minorities, nationalities, and localities have awakened and become more aware of the threat of globalization. This threat exists in the homogenizing nature of globalization, which makes people and nationalities melt down into one. This has led to an increased national sense as a response to the force of globalization in order to protect cultures, traditions, and nationalities form melting or adopting the new structure of the world that is caused by globalization. However, nationalism has created xenophobia in which people fear that their nationality and traditions will disappear in the face of globalization. Therefore, they create or invent traditions or reestablish old traditions in which they maintain their identity. As Deutsch stated, “Xenophobia is written into the heart of nationalism” (Delanty and O’Mahony, 2002, P.167). Thus, fearing the force of globalization has led to an increased sense of nationalism and more defensive means to protect or even invent traditions just to resist globalization.

On the other hand, globalization can be seen as a challenge to nationalism in the way that it increases immigration and the movement of peoples, which might create new sources of tensions and pose new difficulties to the management of cultural and ethnic diversity (Natalie, 2010). Some other threats include participation in international organizations and the loss of parts of a state’s sovereignty over its own territory, as well as regional integration eroding nationalist ideology. This argument might seem convincible and well argued, but evidence shows the opposite. For example, the EU is an international organization and at the same time it strengthens Europe.

In a globalized world, many features of nationalism seem to have been revived. Increasing migration movements fosters xenophobia among people. Mixing cultures and newly emerging hybrid cultures make it hard for people to find their identity and let them turn towards their own culture (Campe, 2008). This means that the force of globalization has pushed nationalism to be raised again and be more important than ever as people realize they are lost without their identity and nationality. Finding an identity is very essential for security reasons in the modern world of insecurities. The tendency toward a strong sense of nationality has been fueled by “fears of diminishing economic resources for the socially insecure.” (Delanty and O’Mahony, 2002, P.156)

It is true that globalization has the potential to contain aggressive nationalism that thrives on isolation and insecurity. It also creates incentives for the resolution and prevention of conflict because of the integration. However, at the same time, it generates nationalistic responses in the form of right wing radicalism or religious fundamentalism that reacts to certain aspects of globalization such as immigration and the restructuring of traditional economies (Sassen, 1998).

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— Written by: Tammam O. Abdulsattar    Written at: Middle East Technical University Written for: Luciano Baracco Date written: June 2013

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And how moral psychology can help explain and reduce tensions between the two.

W hat on earth is going on in the Western democracies? From the rise of Donald Trump in the United States and an assortment of right-wing parties across Europe through the June 23 Brexit vote, many on the Left have the sense that something dangerous and ugly is spreading: right-wing populism, seen as the Zika virus of politics. Something has gotten into “those people” that makes them vote in ways that seem—to their critics—likely to harm their own material interests, at least if their leaders follow through in implementing isolationist policies that slow economic growth.

Most analyses published since the Brexit vote focus on economic factors and some version of the “left behind” thesis —globalization has raised prosperity all over the world, with the striking exception of the working classes in Western societies. These less educated members of the richest countries lost access to well-paid but relatively low-skilled jobs, which were shipped overseas or given to immigrants willing to work for less. In communities where wages have stagnated or declined, the ever-rising opulence, rents, and confidence of London and other super-cities has bred resentment.

A smaller set of analyses, particularly in the United States, has focused on the psychological trait of authoritarianism to explain why these populist movements are often so hostile to immigration, and why they usually have an outright racist fringe.

Globalization and authoritarianism are both essential parts of the story, but in this essay I will put them together in a new way. I’ll tell a story with four chapters that begins by endorsing the distinction made by the intellectual historian Michael Lind , and other commentators, between globalists and nationalists—these are good descriptions of the two teams of combatants emerging in so many Western nations. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French National Front, pointed to the same dividing line last December when she portrayed the battle in France as one between “globalists” and “patriots.”

But rather than focusing on the nationalists as the people who need to be explained by experts, I’ll begin the story with the globalists. I’ll show how globalization and rising prosperity have changed the values and behavior of the urban elite, leading them to talk and act in ways that unwittingly activate authoritarian tendencies in a subset of the nationalists. I’ll show why immigration has been so central in nearly all right-wing populist movements. It’s not just the spark, it’s the explosive material, and those who dismiss anti-immigrant sentiment as mere racism have missed several important aspects of moral psychology related to the general human need to live in a stable and coherent moral order. Once moral psychology is brought into the story and added on to the economic and authoritarianism explanations, it becomes possible to offer some advice for reducing the intensity of the recent wave of conflicts.

Chapter One: The Rise of the Globalists

A s nations grow prosperous, their values change in predictable ways. The most detailed longitudinal research on these changes comes from the World Values Survey , which asks representative samples of people in dozens of countries about their values and beliefs. The WVS has now collected and published data in six “waves” since the early 1980s; the most recent survey included sixty countries. Nearly all of the countries are now far wealthier than they were in the 1980s, and many made a transition from communism to capitalism and from dictatorship to democracy in the interim. How did these momentous changes affect their values?

Each country has followed a unique trajectory, but if we zoom out far enough some general trends emerge from the WVS data. Countries seem to move in two directions, along two axes: first, as they industrialize, they move away from “traditional values” in which religion, ritual, and deference to authorities are important, and toward “secular rational” values that are more open to change, progress, and social engineering based on rational considerations. Second, as they grow wealthier and more citizens move into the service sector, nations move away from “survival values” emphasizing the economic and physical security found in one’s family, tribe, and other parochial groups, toward “self-expression” or “emancipative values” that emphasize individual rights and protections—not just for oneself, but as a matter of principle, for everyone. Here is a summary of those changes from the introduction to Christian Welzel’s enlightening book Freedom Rising :

…fading existential pressures [i.e., threats and challenges to survival] open people’s minds, making them prioritize freedom over security, autonomy over authority, diversity over uniformity, and creativity over discipline. By the same token, persistent existential pressures keep people’s minds closed, in which case they emphasize the opposite priorities…the existentially relieved state of mind is the source of tolerance and solidarity beyond one’s in-group; the existentially stressed state of mind is the source of discrimination and hostility against out-groups.

Democratic capitalism—in societies with good rule of law and non-corrupt institutions—has generated steady increases in living standards and existential security for many decades now. As societies become more prosperous and safe, they generally become more open and tolerant. Combined with vastly greater access to the food, movies, and consumer products of other cultures brought to us by globalization and the internet, this openness leads almost inevitably to the rise of a cosmopolitan attitude, usually most visible in the young urban elite. Local ties weaken, parochialism becomes a dirty word, and people begin to think of their fellow human beings as fellow “citizens of the world” (to quote candidate Barack Obama in Berlin in 2008). The word “cosmopolitan” comes from Greek roots meaning, literally, “citizen of the world.” Cosmopolitans embrace diversity and welcome immigration, often turning those topics into litmus tests for moral respectability.

For example, in 2007, former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave a speech that included the phrase, “British jobs for British workers.” The phrase provoked anger and scorn from many of Brown’s colleagues in the Labour party. In an essay in Prospect , David Goodhart described the scene at a British center-left social event a few days after Brown’s remark:

The people around me entered a bidding war to express their outrage at Brown’s slogan which was finally triumphantly closed by one who declared, to general approval, that it was “racism, pure and simple.” I remember thinking afterwards how odd the conversation would have sounded to most other people in this country. Gordon Brown’s phrase may have been clumsy and cynical but he didn’t actually say British jobs for white British workers. In most other places in the world today, and indeed probably in Britain itself until about 25 years ago, such a statement about a job preference for national citizens would have seemed so banal as to be hardly worth uttering. Now the language of liberal universalism has ruled it beyond the pale.

The shift that Goodhart notes among the Left-leaning British elite is related to the shift toward “emancipative” values described by Welzel. Parochialism is bad and universalism is good. Goodhart quotes George Monbiot , a leading figure of the British Left:

Internationalism…tells us that someone living in Kinshasa is of no less worth than someone living in Kensington…. Patriotism, if it means anything, tells us we should favour the interests of British people [before the Congolese]. How do you reconcile this choice with liberalism? How…do you distinguish it from racism?

Monbiot’s claim that patriotism is indistinguishable from racism illustrates the universalism that has characterized elements of the globalist Left in many Western nations for several decades. John Lennon wrote the globalist anthem in 1971. After asking us to imagine that there’s no heaven, and before asking us to imagine no possessions, Lennon asks us to:

Imagine there’s no countries; it isn’t hard to do Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.

This is a vision of heaven for multicultural globalists. But it’s naiveté, sacrilege, and treason for nationalists.

Chapter Two: Globalists and Nationalists Grow Further Apart on Immigration

N ationalists see patriotism as a virtue; they think their country and its culture are unique and worth preserving. This is a real moral commitment, not a pose to cover up racist bigotry. Some nationalists do believe that their country is better than all others, and some nationalisms are plainly illiberal and overtly racist. But as many defenders of patriotism have pointed out, you love your spouse because she or he is yours, not because you think your spouse is superior to all others. Nationalists feel a bond with their country, and they believe that this bond imposes moral obligations both ways: Citizens have a duty to love and serve their country, and governments are duty bound to protect their own people. Governments should place their citizens interests above the interests of people in other countries.

There is nothing necessarily racist or base about this arrangement or social contract. Having a shared sense of identity, norms, and history generally promotes trust. Having no such shared sense leads to the condition that the sociologist Émile Durkheim described as “anomie” or normlessness. Societies with high trust, or high social capital, produce many beneficial outcomes for their citizens: lower crime rates, lower transaction costs for businesses, higher levels of prosperity, and a propensity toward generosity, among others. A liberal nationalist can reasonably argue that the debate over immigration policy in Europe is not a case of what is moral versus what is base, but a case of two clashing moral visions, incommensurate ( à la Isaiah Berlin). The trick, from this point of view, is figuring out how to balance reasonable concerns about the integrity of one’s own community with the obligation to welcome strangers, particularly strangers in dire need.

So how have nationalists and globalists responded to the European immigration crisis? For the past year or two we’ve all seen shocking images of refugees washing up alive and dead on European beaches, marching in long lines across south eastern Europe, scaling fences, filling train stations, and hiding and dying in trucks and train tunnels. If you’re a European globalist, you were probably thrilled in August 2015 when Angela Merkel announced Germany’s open-door policy to refugees and asylum seekers. There are millions of people in need, and (according to some globalists) national borders are arbitrary and immoral.

But the globalists are concentrated in the capital cities, commercial hubs, and university towns—the places that are furthest along on the values shift found in the World Values Survey data. Figure 1 shows this geographic disjunction in the UK, using data collected in 2014. Positive sentiment toward immigrants is plotted on the Y axis, and desire for Britain to leave the EU on the X axis. Residents of Inner London are extreme outliers on both dimensions when compared to other cities and regions of the UK, and even when compared to residents of outer London.

Figure 1. British towns that favor Brexit have more negative views of immigrants. Inner London is an outlier. Source: Centre for European Reform , using 2014 data from Nick Vivyan and Chris Hanretty, ‘Estimating Constituency Opinion.’

But if you are a European nationalist, watching the nightly news may have felt like watching the spread of the Zika virus, moving steadily northward from the chaos zones of southwest Asia and north Africa. Only a few right-wing nationalist leaders tried to stop it, such as Victor Orban in Hungary. The globalist elite seemed to be cheering the human tidal wave onward, welcoming it into the heart of Europe, and then demanding that every country accept and resettle a large number of refugees.

And these demands, epicentered in Brussels, came after decades of debate in which nationalists had been arguing that Europe has already been too open and had already taken in so many Muslim immigrants that the cultures and traditions of European societies were threatened. Long before the flow of Syrian asylum seekers arrived in Europe there were initiatives to ban minarets in Switzerland and burkas in France. There were riots in Arab neighborhoods of Paris and Marseilles, and attacks on Jews and synagogues throughout Europe. There were hidden terrorist cells that planned and executed the attacks of September 11 in the United States, attacks on trains and buses in Madrid and London, and the slaughter of the Charlie Hebdo staff in Paris.

By the summer of 2015 the nationalist side was already at the boiling point, shouting “enough is enough, close the tap,” when the globalists proclaimed, “let us open the floodgates, it’s the compassionate thing to do, and if you oppose us you are a racist.” Might that not provoke even fairly reasonable people to rage? Might that not make many of them more receptive to arguments, ideas, and political parties that lean toward the illiberal side of nationalism and that were considered taboo just a few years earlier?

Chapter Three: Muslim Immigration Triggers the Authoritarian Alarm

N ationalists in Europe have been objecting to mass immigration for decades, so the gigantic surge of asylum seekers in 2015 was bound to increase their anger and their support for right-wing nationalist parties. Globalists tend to explain these reactions as “racism, pure and simple,” or as the small-minded small-town selfishness of people who don’t want to lose either jobs or benefits to foreigners.

Racism is clearly evident in some of the things that some nationalists say in interviews, chant at soccer matches, or write on the Internet with the protection of anonymity. But “racism” is a shallow term when used as an explanation. It asserts that there are some people who just don’t like anyone different from themselves—particularly if they have darker skin. They have no valid reason for this dislike; they just dislike difference, and that’s all we need to know to understand their rage.

But that is not all we need to know. On closer inspection, racism usually turns out to be deeply bound up with moral concerns. (I use the term “moral” here in a purely descriptive sense to mean concerns that seem—for the people we are discussing—to be matters of good and evil; I am not saying that racism is in fact morally good or morally correct.) People don’t hate others just because they have darker skin or differently shaped noses; they hate people whom they perceive as having values that are incompatible with their own, or who (they believe) engage in behaviors they find abhorrent, or whom they perceive to be a threat to something they hold dear. These moral concerns may be out of touch with reality, and they are routinely amplified by demagogues. But if we want to understand the recent rise of right-wing populist movements, then “racism” can’t be the stopping point; it must be the beginning of the inquiry.

Among the most important guides in this inquiry is the political scientist Karen Stenner. In 2005 Stenner published a book called The Authoritarian Dynamic , an academic work full of graphs, descriptions of regression analyses, and discussions of scholarly disputes over the nature of authoritarianism. (It therefore has not had a wide readership.) Her core finding is that authoritarianism is not a stable personality trait. It is rather a psychological predisposition to become intolerant when the person perceives a certain kind of threat. It’s as though some people have a button on their foreheads, and when the button is pushed, they suddenly become intensely focused on defending their in-group, kicking out foreigners and non-conformists, and stamping out dissent within the group. At those times they are more attracted to strongmen and the use of force. At other times, when they perceive no such threat, they are not unusually intolerant. So the key is to understand what pushes that button.

The answer, Stenner suggests, is what she calls “normative threat,” which basically means a threat to the integrity of the moral order (as they perceive it). It is the perception that “we” are coming apart:

The experience or perception of disobedience to group authorities or authorities unworthy of respect, nonconformity to group norms or norms proving questionable, lack of consensus in group values and beliefs and, in general, diversity and freedom ‘run amok’ should activate the predisposition and increase the manifestation of these characteristic attitudes and behaviors.

So authoritarians are not being selfish. They are not trying to protect their wallets or even their families. They are trying to protect their group or society . Some authoritarians see their race or bloodline as the thing to be protected, and these people make up the deeply racist subset of right-wing populist movements, including the fringe that is sometimes attracted to neo-Nazism. They would not even accept immigrants who fully assimilated to the culture. But more typically, in modern Europe and America, it is the nation and its culture that nationalists want to preserve.

Stenner identifies authoritarians in her many studies by the degree to which they endorse a few items about the most important values children should learn at home, for example, “obedience” (vs. “independence” and “tolerance and respect for other people”). She then describes a series of studies she did using a variety of methods and cross-national datasets. In one set of experiments she asked Americans to read fabricated news stories about how their nation is changing. When they read that Americans are changing in ways that make them more similar to each other, authoritarians were no more racist and intolerant than others. But when Stenner gave them a news story suggesting that Americans are becoming more morally diverse, the button got pushed, the “authoritarian dynamic” kicked in, and they became more racist and intolerant. For example, “maintaining order in the nation” became a higher national priority while “protecting freedom of speech” became a lower priority. They became more critical of homosexuality, abortion, and divorce.

One of Stenner’s most helpful contributions is her finding that authoritarians are psychologically distinct from “status quo conservatives” who are the more prototypical conservatives—cautious about radical change. Status quo conservatives compose the long and distinguished lineage from Edmund Burke’s prescient reflections and fears about the early years of the French revolution through William F. Buckley’s statement that his conservative magazine National Review would “stand athwart history yelling ‘Stop!’”

Status quo conservatives are not natural allies of authoritarians, who often favor radical change and are willing to take big risks to implement untested policies. This is why so many Republicans—and nearly all conservative intellectuals—oppose Donald Trump; he is simply not a conservative by the test of temperament or values. But status quo conservatives can be drawn into alliance with authoritarians when they perceive that progressives have subverted the country’s traditions and identity so badly that dramatic political actions (such as Brexit, or banning Muslim immigration to the United States) are seen as the only remaining way of yelling “Stop!” Brexit can seem less radical than the prospect of absorption into the “ever closer union” of the EU.

So now we can see why immigration—particularly the recent surge in Muslim immigration from Syria—has caused such powerfully polarized reactions in so many European countries, and even in the United States where the number of Muslim immigrants is low. Muslim Middle Eastern immigrants are seen by nationalists as posing a far greater threat of terrorism than are immigrants from any other region or religion. But Stenner invites us to look past the security threat and examine the normative threat. Islam asks adherents to live in ways that can make assimilation into secular egalitarian Western societies more difficult compared to other groups. (The same can be said for Orthodox Jews, and Stenner’s authoritarian dynamic can help explain why we are seeing a resurgence of right-wing anti-Semitism in the United States.) Muslims don’t just observe different customs in their private lives; they often request and receive accommodations in law and policy from their host countries, particularly in matters related to gender. Some of the most pitched battles of recent decades in France and other European countries have been fought over the veiling and covering of women, and the related need for privacy and gender segregation. For example, some public swimming pools in Sweden now offer times of day when only women are allowed to swim. This runs contrary to strong Swedish values regarding gender equality and non-differentiation.

So whether you are a status quo conservative concerned about rapid change or an authoritarian who is hypersensitive to normative threat, high levels of Muslim immigration into your Western nation are likely to threaten your core moral concerns. But as soon as you speak up to voice those concerns, globalists will scorn you as a racist and a rube. When the globalists—even those who run the center-right parties in your country—come down on you like that, where can you turn? The answer, increasingly, is to the far right-wing nationalist parties in Europe, and to Donald Trump, who just engineered a hostile takeover of the Republican Party in America.

The Authoritarian Dynamic was published in 2005 and the word “Muslim” occurs just six times (in contrast to 100 appearances of the word “black”). But Stenner’s book offers a kind of Rosetta stone for interpreting the rise of right-wing populism and its focus on Muslims in 2016. Stenner notes that her theory “explains the kind of intolerance that seems to ‘come out of nowhere,’ that can spring up in tolerant and intolerant cultures alike, producing sudden changes in behavior that cannot be accounted for by slowly changing cultural traditions.”

She contrasts her theory with those who see an unstoppable tide of history moving away from traditions and “toward greater respect for individual freedom and difference,” and who expect people to continue evolving “into more perfect liberal democratic citizens.“ She does not say which theorists she has in mind, but Welzel and his World Values Survey collaborators, as well as Francis Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis, seem to be likely candidates. Stenner does not share the optimism of those theorists about the future of Western liberal democracies. She acknowledges the general trends toward tolerance, but she predicts that these very trends create conditions that hyper-activate authoritarians and produce a powerful backlash. She offered this prophecy:

[T]he increasing license allowed by those evolving cultures generates the very conditions guaranteed to goad latent authoritarians to sudden and intense, perhaps violent, and almost certainly unexpected, expressions of intolerance. Likewise, then, if intolerance is more a product of individual psychology than of cultural norms…we get a different vision of the future, and a different understanding of whose problem this is and will be, than if intolerance is an almost accidental by-product of simple attachment to tradition. The kind of intolerance that springs from aberrant individual psychology, rather than the disinterested absorption of pervasive cultural norms, is bound to be more passionate and irrational, less predictable, less amenable to persuasion, and more aggravated than educated by the cultural promotion of tolerance  [emphasis added].

Writing in 2004, Stenner predicted that “intolerance is not a thing of the past, it is very much a thing of the future.”

Chapter Four: What Now?

T he upshot of all this is that the answer to the question we began with—What on earth is going on?—cannot be found just by looking at the nationalists and pointing to their economic conditions and the racism that some of them do indeed display. One must first look at the globalists, and at how their changing values may drive many of their fellow citizens to support right-wing political leaders. In particular, globalists often support high levels of immigration and reductions in national sovereignty; they tend to see transnational entities such as the European Union as being morally superior to nation-states; and they vilify the nationalists and their patriotism as “racism pure and simple.” These actions press the “normative threat” button in the minds of those who are predisposed to authoritarianism, and these actions can drive status quo conservatives to join authoritarians in fighting back against the globalists and their universalistic projects.

If this argument is correct, then it leads to a clear set of policy prescriptions for globalists. First and foremost: Think carefully about the way your country handles immigration and try to manage it in a way that is less likely to provoke an authoritarian reaction. Pay attention to three key variables: the percentage of foreign-born residents at any given time, the degree of moral difference of each incoming group, and the degree of assimilation being achieved by each group’s children.

Legal immigration from morally different cultures is not problematic even with low levels of assimilation if the numbers are kept low; small ethnic enclaves are not a normative threat to any sizable body politic. Moderate levels of immigration by morally different ethnic groups are fine, too, as long as the immigrants are seen as successfully assimilating to the host culture. When immigrants seem eager to embrace the language, values, and customs of their new land, it affirms nationalists’ sense of pride that their nation is good, valuable, and attractive to foreigners. But whenever a country has historically high levels of immigration, from countries with very different moralities, and without a strong and successful assimilationist program, it is virtually certain that there will be an authoritarian counter-reaction, and you can expect many status quo conservatives to support it.

Stenner ends The Authoritarian Dynamic with some specific and constructive advice:

[A]ll the available evidence indicates that exposure to difference, talking about difference, and applauding difference—the hallmarks of liberal democracy—are the surest ways to aggravate those who are innately intolerant, and to guarantee the increased expression of their predispositions in manifestly intolerant attitudes and behaviors. Paradoxically, then, it would seem that we can best limit intolerance of difference by parading, talking about, and applauding our sameness…. Ultimately, nothing inspires greater tolerance from the intolerant than an abundance of common and unifying beliefs, practices, rituals, institutions, and processes. And regrettably, nothing is more certain to provoke increased expression of their latent predispositions than the likes of “multicultural education,” bilingual policies, and nonassimilation.

If Stenner is correct, then her work has profound implications, not just for America, which was the focus of her book, but perhaps even more so for Europe. Donald Tusk, the current president of the European Council, recently gave a speech to a conclave of center-right Christian Democratic leaders (who, as members of the educated elite, are still generally globalists). Painfully aware of the new authoritarian supremacy in his native Poland, he chastised himself and his colleagues for pushing a “utopia of Europe without nation-states.” This, he said, has caused the recent Euroskeptic backlash: “Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro-enthusiasm.”

Democracy requires letting ordinary citizens speak. The majority spoke in Britain on June 23, and majorities of similar mien may soon make themselves heard in other European countries, and possibly in the United States in November. The year 2016 will likely be remembered as a major turning point in the trajectory of Western democracies. Those who truly want to understand what is happening should carefully consider the complex interplay of globalization, immigration, and changing values.

If the story I have told here is correct, then the globalists could easily speak, act, and legislate in ways that drain passions and votes away from nationalist parties, but this would require some deep rethinking about the value of national identities and cohesive moral communities. It would require abandoning the multicultural approach to immigration and embracing assimilation.

The great question for Western nations after 2016 may be this: How do we reap the gains of global cooperation in trade, culture, education, human rights, and environmental protection while respecting—rather than diluting or crushing—the world’s many local, national, and other “parochial” identities, each with its own traditions and moral order? In what kind of world can globalists and nationalists live together in peace?

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World History Project - 1750 to the Present

Course: world history project - 1750 to the present   >   unit 9.

• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Unit 9 Overview
• WATCH: Unit 9 Overview

READ: Unit 9 Overview - Globalization, Internationalism, and Nationalism

• BEFORE YOU WATCH: Frames in Unit 9
• WATCH: Frames in Unit 9
• READ: Data Exploration – Future Population Growth
• Unit 9 Overview

First read: preview and skimming for gist

Second read: key ideas and understanding content.

• How and when did the decolonization and Cold War stories of the last unit end?
• When did globalization “begin”, according to the author? What does it mean to call the era after the Second World War to today an era of “intense globalization”?
• What are some questions we can ask about individual and national sovereignty and rights since 1945?
• What kinds of communities does the author argue exist today?
• What changes to the environment has globalization helped to promote?

Third read: evaluating and corroborating

• What issues raised in this article seem most important to you? Why?
• At this point, would you argue that globalization has been a positive or negative trend for the human species as a whole? On what evidence?

Unit 9: Globalization, Internationalism, and Nationalism

Rights and identity in an age of intense globalization, economics and environment in the age of intense globalization, the present, want to join the conversation.

• How it works

Globalization and Nationalism - Essay Example

There is a great relationship between nationalism and globalization as the perspectives form the basis of the modern society. Nationalism is instrumental to global governance through the systems of the nations. Most people consider nationalism as a sentiment, ideology, social movement or a culture that concerns nations. According to anthropologists, nations or the ethnic groups existed for more than 20,000 years until the most recent centuries when people identified themselves with local identities. Globally, nationalism is the foundation of modern social solidarity and society as it is essential in the promotion of nationalism and national unity. Overall, nationalism and globalism are responsible for the grief societies present today.

Nations dominate the world as every corner of the planet belongs to a particular country thereby creating more than 200 territories or countries. However, nationalism and the present-nation states have a long history. This history stretches from the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods. There are still some countries that still hold territorial disputes. Other countries are still split alongside their ethnic groups that form the basis of their political leaders, particularly in Africa. Most of the countries in the world became independent after the World War II while others had gained independence before the colonial period. A large percentage of the nations followed the basis of social nationalism instead of nation states dominated by particular ethnic origins. These nations, just like the U.S are products of globalization that defines the current situations in the world. There are significant differences in the viewpoints on what constitutes globalization, its origin and the direction that it's leading the world.

Different approaches explain the relationship between nationalism and globalization. One of the approaches sees nationalism and nations as losers of history which is a stage that human beings passed to the new development of humankind that keeps on disappearing and giving way to other structures. The new formations are becoming more suitable to increase the global interconnectedness on this planet. The other approach views nationalism as an enduring political force and the most potent that is far from disappearing. Nationalism is in the process of strengthening as it seeks to address the challenges related to globalization. Irrespective of the diverse viewpoints, both approaches have a common understanding of kind of relationships between nationalism and globalization.

The two approaches are different from each other and demonstrate relationships of confrontation and resistance between nationalism and globalization. The first approach suggests that nationalism will eventually leave the center stage after losing out to supranational alternatives as necessitated by globalization. On the second approach, nationalism is expected to intensive and increase response to and handle the opposing forces of globalization. Anthony Giddens suggests that the accentuation of local identities and revival of local nationalisms are bound up with globalization impacts to which they oppose. The two approaches just present complex interconnections between nationalism and globalization.

Nationalism and globalization forces can complement each other rather than contradict individuals to embrace, accept and promote globalization for diverse reasons such as the nationalist objectives. The relationship between nationalism and globalization is beneficial and not destined to identify the winners and losers as they are perfectly compatible.

Currently, globalization isnt a big challenge to the already established international news and systems. In fact, there are a lot of positives regarding the promotion of globalization. Recently, there is no news for the death of states. Instead, there is news of new nations. Globalization provides states with the opportunities of receiving international recognition and protection as they enter into various global organizations. They become powerful to the extents of controlling the largest percentage of human life. However, historically the key areas of nations authorities have suffered erosion on the provision of security, protection of territorial integrity, economic regulation and control of communications. The capabilities of countries are highly variable and contingent.

Nations have many differences, particularly on their capabilities. It may be incorrect to expect that all the countries experience same impacts from globalization regardless of their differences. Domestic policies and national institutions mediate the effects of globalization on both the individual and state levels to examine the power between the global economic factors and countries. The governments of some countries in particular, the powerful nations are active on the globalization aspects as they believe that they are critical to their well being. Smaller countries have little authority and are more rule-accepters rather than rule-makers in globalization contexts. However, this viewpoint doesnt render them irrelevant, or their existence is insignificant.

Globalization sustains nationalism and provides survival for the most fragile countries or states. Some newly created states and countries such as Southern Sudan and Georgian state may benefit from globalization as they receive forces that contribute to their survival and viability. Globalization protects the residents of a country from power politics and reduces political-power competition amongst countries that might create tension in the long run.

Professionals and elites present globalization regarding countries or states versus markets as if the two need always to be together. Usually, global markets depend on a nations development of the set norms, rules and regulations for the daily activities. Global elements including the international companies controlled to globalization markets are usually under the control of their governments. Nations matter greatly in the creation of the right stimulus and conditions for globalization to function. Sometimes, particularly in the times of crisis, countries or states took a firm stand as governments and need to intervene and cushion the effects of economic and financial meltdown. Most importantly, it is unclear what the future holds for globalization particularly in the periods of crisis. The existence of globalization largely depends in nationalism which the latter is an irreversible phenomenon unlike the former which is reversible.

Globalization is responsible for the growth of nationalism. In the current world, the mobility of people is greater than in the past due to the opportunities offered by globalization. As a result, migration is significantly increasing especially the air travel which allows people to move thousands of miles away around the world in several hours. Globalization, a cause for migration is manifold. As tourists and other adventurers plan to travel various countries for just a while other people such as asylum seekers, refugees, and economic migrants plan to leave their countries for several years or forever. Such freedom of movement brings people with diverse backgrounds and cultures to live together and carry other their meaningful activities collectively. Globalization creates a multicultural community that is evident in most of the countries as well as states. The United States is a classic example of a multicultural community consisting of people with different cultures, ethnic groups, and races. The most important aspect is that they live peacefully.

Globalization promotes interdependent of global economy thereby increase the nationalism interconnectedness. Economic nationalism is currently an absolute and in most cases causes harm to the practices of nations. The economic fate of a nation appears to be largely deepened to the fate of other countries. There are many commissions and associations globally recognized to strengthen economic ties between countries. For instance, Transnational Corporations have the mandate to act globally in establishing a global market. They work towards the improvement of imports and exports levels as well as increase the foreign direct investments. The formation of national economic models paves way creation of a national economy that ensures that countries are interdependent of each other. The existence of regional organizations such as European Union facilitates the linkage between nations.

Many nationalists view globalization as a way of undermining the countries nationalism as it poses great challenges. The rise of new technological advances, in particular, the internet is a great threat to nationalism. Persons from different nations can now interact freely as the world has no virtual borders. The existence of the World Wide Web creates social platforms in which people get to know each other. Currently, millions of people are flooding the social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest amongst others. This huge population shares their interest, ideas, beliefs, and fears. There is a tendency that some social forums use other languages, most of the forums use English since it is the general language for the internet. People have to learn English to identify themselves with the rest of the world population. In this manner, people abandon their national languages, cultures, and practices to embrace those of other people. In this manner, globalization declines nationalism.

However, there are multiple arguments that globalization is instrumental in fostering the ideologies of nationalists. In the periods of global terrorism and mass migration, the fear of strangers significantly increases. People usually tend to fear people of particular countries, region, religion, and color amongst others. They also tend to fear anyone not identified with their culture since they dont well understand the foreigners. They usually tend to trust people whom they know and those whom they can understand their language. Nationalists fear the loss of their customs to foreign culture as they fear the influence of exotic cultures. The fear of foreigners and strangers may change the cultures of a state thereby leading to renaissance. For example, some think that it is important to prohibit immigration top foster the ideas of nationalists.

Xenophobia is not the only factor that boosts nationalism. People often fear to lose their national culture through the processes of globalization. According to Waters loss of culture and identity is the main concern for the globalization protestors. It also accompanies the loss of language as people become interested in other languages while abandoning theirs. For instance, Estonia faces a great threat from Russia and the country imposed a policy of maintaining and developing its culture and language. Most of the nationalists will fear to lose their cultural heritage or significant erosion of their beliefs to foreigners. Migration fosters nationalism as people with various beliefs move away while others with other beliefs come in with different cultures.

Multicultural societies foster nationalism in different ways. The largest population of people living in states is ethnic nationals as individuals from other cultural backgrounds create many minority groups. It might be challenging for the greater part of the population understand or recognize the concerns of the minorities which can result in tensions between ethnic cultures. Nationalists work towards eliminating such fears and seek to bring all the cultures together in a bid to make common political decisions. Nevertheless, in most of the democratic nations, there are laws set to protect the minorities as their opinions is a force that...

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[Note: The somewhat odd tone and form of this essay are due to its having been one of two speech ideas sent to VDARE.com editor Peter Brimelow for consideration for possible presentation at their April 2024 conference. Ultimately, the other speech (which I might submit for publication later) was chosen, though due to their regular lineup having been full already it was given at a breakout session on the conference’s final day. Though I will be breaking this speech up into individual parts for VDARE.com, both to elaborate on the parts and to keep the length of each within their webzine’s normal format, I thought it would be of interest to TOO readers to have it produced in its original form here.]

In this essay I’m going to lay out the evidence for something perhaps surprising even to The Occidental Observer readers, but pleasantly so. We of the Dissident Right are usually loath to fight according to the rules of engagement the left dictates for their enemies—and then disregards for themselves; we have a visceral (and quite healthy) disgust for the tactic of trying to punch while keeping your head firmly kowtowed to the ground, a la Democrats are the real racists and other such nonsense. But in this case I do suggest that we fight the Left while giving only scorn to their antinationalist premises—and completely rout them—on the terrain of their choice.

For when it comes to trade and immigration, it is actually the case that protectionism and extreme immigration restriction by the White and East Asian nations actually raises the standard of living not just of those countries but of the entire world.

Seems counterintuitive, I know. But it’s completely, logically, and empirically true. How do I know? Well, let me walk you through it. To start with, we need to ask, what determines a nation’s standard of living and what makes it increase?

Part of it is natural resources, though that’s obviously not the whole story: if it were, the resource-laden nations of Africa would have much higher standards of living than Hong Kong, which is basically a desolate rock, but the polar opposite is true. And before the arrival of the colonists, America’s living standard was stubbornly stuck in the stone age, despite its having every desirable resource since time immemorial. What did the colonists bring with them that allowed the nation to make the jump from prehistoric lifestyles to ones rivaling those of the wealthiest nations (at the time) on earth in a little over two centuries? Basically, physical and intellectual capital and the desire and ability to use the latter to increase the former per capita. In other words, the more we can increase the number of machines, tools, and devices relative to our numbers—plus a little genius here and there to improve our technological techniques and achieve a multiplier effect on that accumulation—the more our standards of living are going to rise. And the opposite is true as well, i.e., increasing the population relative to the amount of capital will see a decline in those standards.

What in turn is required for capital accumulation? Well, having a good number of STEM types relative to the population and a robust savings rate; or to put it another way, you need a people with high average IQ and low time preference. And as I said, a few geniuses, whose intelligence is not always as measurable as IQ, provide a good accelerant, but even without that x factor, a high IQ/low time preference population alone would be able to increase living standards, just not as quickly.

And what’s true on the national scale is no less true on the world scale. The more high IQ/low time preference humans as a percentage of the world’s population, the higher the standard of living will be for everyone , other things being equal. As I’ll show in a moment, this will happen regardless of the intentions of the White or East Asian countries.

While slight variation is seen from country to country, the average IQ of the White nations is 100, the average of the East Asian ones is 105, and both have relatively high saving rates when compared to other peoples (I’m excluding Ashkenazi Jews from the discussion despite the 112 average IQ and high savings rate because of how infinitesimally small their numbers are compared to the world population). So if the world population’s proportion of Whites and East Asians were to increase, you’d have more STEM types and geniuses—Whites actually lead in that regard, as they have greater numbers both above and below their average intelligence level relative to East Asians—as a percent of the total, meaning a greater potential for increasing the amount of capital per capita.

When looking toward the future, consider the above in light of this graphic I put together showing IQ vs fertility rate: read it and weep—or at least, reach for a stiff drink. (To see just how screwed the world is unless something changes, just eyeball the lines connecting a country’s ranking on the first list (fertility ranking, high to low) versus the second (IQ ranking, high to low): if the world were to be getting smarter on average or at least staying the same, most of those lines would be horizontal. The more vertical the lines, the dumber the world will be getting on average relative to now.)

As you can see, the STEM powerhouses are either declining or stagnating while the STEM deserts are exploding relative to the total.

The graph might be labeled the confluence of globalization and biology. Long story short, as the US, Europe and its former colonies, and to a lesser extent Japan began outsourcing manufacturing to the lower income countries, the real incomes of the working and middle classes either declined or slowed relative to their potential, while the real incomes of the nations outsourced to went through the roof—as did their population numbers in most cases. As the graph makes clear, the once-poor high-IQ nations South Korea and China put their newfound wealth into increased capital and let their birthrates decline, while the low IQ nations put theirs into funding a population boom, as seen in this graph of the world’s most populous countries.

Once below the population of Germany (with an average IQ of 100), both Indonesia (average IQ of 80) and Nigeria (average IQ of 68) have left Deutschland in the demographic dust using the wealth born of the West’s capital export (and in Africa’s case, with Western aid and charity as well).

Let me quickly show you the mechanics of the betrayal of the Western working and middle classes by the globalists and how the damage done not only to them but to the country and indeed world, is even worse than it first appears. To sum up the way the initial and most obvious damage, that is, to the First World’s middle and working classes, plays out, we simply use what you might term the globalization of Say’s Law: just as Say’s Law says that the production of product A creates a demand for product B (so, a cobbler’s shoes produced and sold create the demand for the various goods he buys with his income), my version states that companies will offshore production until the decline of real incomes from diminished production in the once-wealthier nations meets with the rise of real incomes from increasing production in the once-poorer nations, ending any profits to be had from offshoring further. Let’s look at it from the standpoint of an individual company, with this graphic showing its total costs and total sales which—subtracting the former from the latter—determine profit: the left part represents the plan to produce it in America, the right the plan to do so via offshoring—and as you can see, the right has a greatly enlarged profit margin, hence, why companies initially rush to offshore.

Of course, for that differential to work, the company needs its US buyers to have the same real income. The reason the company loves those third worlders as workers is the same reason it hates them as customers: unless we’re talking about food and maybe something like a cell phone, there’s no way the man who puts in an entire day to earn what an American worker would make in an hour is going to buy the company’s product for the same price. But as offshoring continues apace and throws more and more American workers out of their manufacturing jobs and into wage competition with other US workers, both real and nominal incomes decline and those workers’ inability to buy the offshoring companies’ products reduces its sales and hence their profit margins from above at the same time that rising real wages of the third world workers begin to reduce those profits from below. This will keep going until it seems as if the two economies fuse and all things interchangeable, including labor and incomes, are mixed and evened out, to the great detriment of the West’s middle and working classes.

For a quick look at the macro effects of this, consider this brief tale of two economies.

List of characteristics :

Country A :

Total population: 120,000 (100,000 working; 20,000 nonworking)

Total incomes: 100,000,000.00

20,000 STEM-types (they earn collectively, 30,000,000.00)

30,000 semiskilled-types (they earn collectively 30,000,000.00)

50,000 unskilled (they earn collectively 40,000,000.00)

Country B :

Total population: 120, 000 (100,000 working; 20,000 nonworking)

Total incomes: 10,000,000.00

100,000 unskilled (they earn collectively 10,000,000.00)

Country A-B fused economy :

Total population: 240,000 (200,000 working; 40,000 nonworking)

Total incomes: 110,000,000.00

150,000 unskilled (they earn collectively 50,000,000.00)

Prefusion per capita earnings:

STEM-type: $1,500.00

Semiskilled: $1,500.00

Unskilled: $800.00

Postfusion per capita earnings:

Unskilled: $333.33

As you can see, Country A is something like a Western nation, with a good percentage of the workforce made up of capital-creating-and-maintaining STEM-types, along with many semiskilled workers and unskilled workers earning pretty decent wages—largely as a result of the capital accumulation and maintenance that the STEM-type and semiskilled workers allow. Country B, on the other hand, is something like an impoverished African nation with virtually no capital and no STEM-types or even semiskilled workers (think something along the lines of The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s natural resources grown and harvested via primitive techniques by a population resembling Sierra Leone’s with its average IQ of 52). Abundant natural resources alone allow Country B to earn one-tenth the national income of Country A, and when they “fuse,” only the interchangeable unskilled workers of both nations are affected income-wise, with Country A’s STEM-type and semiskilled workers doing just as well, as there are no Country B workers who can compete with them for wages. What happens is essentially that manufacturing facilities in Country A shut down and ship out along with their STEM-type and semiskilled workforces (who will be getting a bit more in pay to compensate for the relocation, etc., but I’m painting with a broad brush here, and the pay of all of Country A STEM-type and semiskilled workers would not go up by that much from this) to Country B to utilize its unskilled dirt-cheap workforce; and in the process all those Country A unskilled workers laid off in manufacturing move into whatever job niches they can find, lowering the wages of unskilled workers in Country A overall.

Though the details would be far more complex in real life, this is, broadly speaking, what happens in globalization and free trade (and unchecked immigration produces a similar effect with the additional burdens of rising crime, diminishing social capital, etc., within the wealthier higher-IQ countries). So in the case of its fusion with a country such as India with its low average IQ overall (77) but its vast reserves of high-IQ Brahmin types thanks to its overall massive population, even Western STEM-types would begin to feel the pressure, with the only overall winners at least from the perspective of Country A being the globalist oligarchs financing the whole thing. So basically, while offshoring seems like a sweet deal to those who take advantage of its initial effects, in the end, the only possible true winners are those of the poorer, lower-IQ nations—and even for them it’s a Pyrrhic victory in the long run.

To see why even the third world’s victory is somewhat Pyrrhic, we need to analyze why globalism’s damage is even more pernicious than you’d think, for two reasons. First, for what you might call the overqualified worker effect. Let me illustrate it with a graph [1] Rodrigo de la Jara, “Modern IQ Ranges for Various Occupations,” IQ Comparison Site, accessed March 22, 2024, https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx . This graph was adapted from Figure 12 of Hauser, Robert M. 2002. “Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success.” CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. The figure is labelled “Wisconsin Men’s Henmon-Nelson IQ Distributions for 1992-94 Occupation Groups with 30 Cases or More” and is found at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf . and a personal story. First, the graph, which is from Robert M. Hauser of The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Center for Demography and Ecology:

As it shows, there’s a pretty wide IQ range within the various fields, with some of the high-end workers in stereotypically middling- and even low-IQ professions having a number higher than the low end of the high-IQ professions—yeah, it even shocked me to see some in the janitorial line of work come out ahead of the dimmer STEM-types, but I guess that’s life, as my personal story illustrates (in a slightly less extreme way). In the early 1900s, my mother’s grandfather emigrated from Germany to the US and settled in Nebraska as a farmer. He had eight kids and took on seasonal help from other German immigrants. When the dust bowl came, he left Nebraska for Ohio where he worked in a factory doing what was de facto engineering work: constructing dies, repairing and calibrating equipment, often doing the math required mentally or just with paper and pencil. Some of his German hired help was that smart as well. So for various reasons, including circumstances, temperament, etc., there are many with STEM-level IQs (119 on average according to a 2009 article by Jonathan Wai et al. [2] Jonathan Wai, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow, “(Pdf) Spatial Ability for STEM Domains: Aligning over 50 Years …,” ResearchGate, November 2009, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228627975_S...lative ) who remain in fields for which they are overqualified. While they might not directly contribute to the pool of STEM workers, their earning enough to raise large families—a thing made impossible when mass immigration pits them against low-IQ, low-wage workers who are just barely qualified for their jobs—helps ensure enough at least potential STEM types in the next generation.

Also, consider this. Per conventional genetics, when you have a population of the same type of organism in which a trait is highly prevalent but not necessarily present in each individual, it’s far more likely for members of that group that don’t themselves show the trait to produce offspring that do than would be the case with the don’t-show-the-trait members of a population in which the trait occurs but is very rare. To put it in human terms, if White or East Asian working-class couples with 90 IQs are earning real incomes that allow them to have four kids each, its far more likely that they’ll produce at least one of STEM-level IQ (which is about 119 on average) than a Hispanic or Black couple with IQs of 90. And as the middle and working classes tend to have more kids than the high-average-IQ upper classes, this provides an extra support for keeping STEM numbers up.

For both of those reasons, those who wish to maintain a modern economy and the standard of living it allows MUST stop forcing the lower and middle classes of heritage Americans into cutthroat wage competition with workers from low-IQ nations who meet just the minimum qualifications for their positions.

How do we stop this process of globalist-induced world immiserization? By having the West embrace true economic nationalism: put an immediate cap on all third-world immigration, including all H-1 types (a true nationalist ought to wish them to stay and help grow the wealth of their own nations); close the border and actually deport the illegals; stop making our smartest and most productive citizens pay for the dimmest and least productive to breed; and end the tax incentives that reward offshoring and replace them with what I like to call veraprotectionism (or true protectionism) consisting of equalizing tariffs tied to the difference in costs of labor and environmental regulations between the US and other nations.

That last part’s especially important. We need true economic nationalism, not crony capitalism: let the pols set the individual rates by industry or some such scheme and you’ll turn the whole thing into a vast, seething caldron of corruption and waste; set it for all countries based on the different average costs of labor etc., and then sit back and let consumers decide which products are best for their costs—without having to worry that choosing the foreign-made will impoverish unseen workers in some part of the nation.

This while you do help the workers of other nations—but only after you’ve helped your own, in the same way that your main duty is to your family: this being the essence of genuine nationalism, which sees true nations as families, united by blood, culture, and law, writ large. See, because all that capital requires complimentary factors in order to use it, including labor, at some point the high-capital-production country reaches a saturation level where it can’t utilize its capital in domestic production, the tariffs having no way and no intention of stopping this. At that point two things happen: 1) there develops a very strong incentive to push for more extensive automation and better capital that can do more with the same amount of labor, and 2) you get a spillover effect whereby capital begins to flow to the third-world nations whose own standards of living then rise even faster. I say even faster because the increasing efficiency of White/East Asian capital and consumer goods enriches the rest of the world as well: either by the obsolete-to-us-but-not-to-them equipment they get or by the increasingly advanced and low-cost goods that we make (how many rural Africans had a phone in the land-line era vs now when there are inexpensive cell phones that use satellites?). And as I’ve said, all that capital accumulation and technological advancement depend entirely on keeping the number of high IQ/low time preference and genius individuals high relative to the overall population, be it on the national or world scale, a condition the Great Replacement is uniquely designed to undo.

Hence, ironically, in battle between true nationalists and globalists it is we, we who merely seek to defend our peoples and nation, who are unintentionally fighting to increase the wealth of all nations while those opposing us, nominally in the name of humanity as a whole, are fighting for its impoverishment. Although we ought never to apologize for looking out for our own peoples and nations first, I hope that after today we can feel confident that, even if we lack the smug arrogance to do so, we would be wholly justified in demanding that those claim to oppose us out of love for the world’s teaming masses thank us for our efforts.

[1] Rodrigo de la Jara, “Modern IQ Ranges for Various Occupations,” IQ Comparison Site, accessed March 22, 2024, https://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx . This graph was adapted from Figure 12 of Hauser, Robert M. 2002. “Meritocracy, cognitive ability, and the sources of occupational success.” CDE Working Paper 98-07 (rev). Center for Demography and Ecology, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin. The figure is labelled “Wisconsin Men’s Henmon-Nelson IQ Distributions for 1992-94 Occupation Groups with 30 Cases or More” and is found at http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/cde/cdewp/98-07.pdf .

[2] Jonathan Wai, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow, “(Pdf) Spatial Ability for STEM Domains: Aligning over 50 Years …,” ResearchGate, November 2009, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228627975_Spatial_Ability_for_STEM_Domains_Aligning_Over_50_Years_of_Cumulative

• The Economic and Social Costs of Direct and Indirect Kleptoparasitism by Blacks and Jews
• The Parasites’ Paradox

East Asia ain’t breeding.

Don’t know much about living standards, but many would say life with tents, leather, plant fiber clothing, birch bark canoes, fire, superior to life in 20th century West or East.

Minds also stronger.

Your idea may seem interesting, but there is a fatal flaw. Our middle and working classes tend to have only one child, whereas the upper classes tend to have many.

Thanks for noting how ruthlessly globalist economic policies have utterly gored the working classes of the developed world over the last 50 years.

This whole situation, though, is artificial and not likely to last another generation. In several formerly European-derived nations flashpoints are showing up. Nations once very stable — think Ireland, Canada, the USA — have all seen situations over the past few years that could lead to war under more strenuous circumstances.

So the “Gilder effect” (named after George Gilder who thought capitalism was at root a type of altruism) will evaporate like the mirage it is. Globalism will go bust, and nations with lots of migrants will have years of ruthless struggle ahead just to get back to the kind of peace that makes prosperity possible.

But nothing that exists today is the consequence of some natural law. Let us remember that for almost the last three millennia the planet has been parasitized by the racism and greed of white Europeans and the tragedy we are experiencing today is the result of exploitation racist and not the normal development of populations.

And as witnesses to that tragedy are the billions of deaths left along the way from the Roman Empire.

“Gilder Effect” usually means George Gilder’s stock letters could move market.

I also agree that, all positive sum trades including capitalism, are at root a type altruism. It is basically Comparative Advantages of Econ 101.

America’s problem is regulatory capture by the manufacturers. Wealth trickle upward from the poor to the rich.

In addition, the US has ~4% of world population but ~25% of world GDP. According to normal distribution, it is natural is the US does not have enough STEM talents to support its GDP share when other nations are developing their talents rapidly. Getting STEM workers through Immigration through H1-B is inevitable. Immigration, however, would further depress homegrown talents. In short, when parents do not talk about STEM issues day-in and day-out in front of their kids. Their kids are Less Likely to be proficient in those fields. A matter of Nature through Nurture.

One way to increase US competitiveness is to lower its exchange rate. But it can’t do that with large budget deficit year after year. Of course, politicians have to continue deficit spending to retain the support constituents: low tax rate for the wealthy supporters and high welfare for poor supporters.

You’re confusing Jews with white people. Jews are the parasites and they certainly are not white. Whites invented all of the technology you’re using to complain about them right now. Be less of a brown bastard.

You haven’t explained why exactly Western countries should not have open borders with other Western countries, though. That way, white (European-descended) and East Asian countries that are friendly towards each other would be able to have their people move around freely between them. You can also have open borders for white (European-descended) and East Asian people who live in countries where they themselves are the minority, such as South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, et cetera.

“But nothing that exists today is the consequence of some natural law.”

You’re right. Half of Africa used to die off as a consequence of natural law. If they had too many children and their country suddenly suffered a drought or a flood, whatever, they were starving and dying.

But along came the West to the rescue, providing tents, food aid, medicine. The White western doctors, nurses, some churches would have had their hearts in the right place. Give these “racist” people some credit, please.

But under the guise of being humanitarian, big agriculture, big pharma, big corporations and many NGOs were loving it because they were making a killing, all paid for by those White western “racist” citizens. And now the aid is just expected. No wonder the population of Africa is increasing exponentially: free food and medicine.

I don’t know if I’m overly tired today, but my suggestion to you would be to get down on the ground and kiss the boots of the White man who gave the world practically everything it has. I bet you’re enjoying some of those things right now, like electricity and refrigeration.

Don’t forget to feel sorry for the slaves who were taken from Ireland, England, France, Portugal and other countries all along the coast by the Arabs. The word “slave” came from the word “Slavs”, people who were kidnapped by the Jews and the Arabs. Or the Irish who were just kidnapped and sold off to some Caribbean slaveholder.

Get a grip, man! As the lyrics from a famous song goes: “We didn’t start the fire. It’s been always burning since the world’s been turning.”

If you want to blame the White elites (who ARE corrupt and evil), then fine, but don’t put the blame on your average White person who is just trying to survive. They have lost their lives in the millions for following the orders of these traitorous rulers.

Negrolatry is rife in Japan, which is finished

African-American man was arrested in Osaka for attacking a 64-year-old man and robbing him. His passport was found at the scene, which helped police track him down. He's also being charged for sexually assaulting a woman. pic.twitter.com/XkuSIQ3Jc3 — Asian Dawn (@AsianDawn4) May 17, 2024

Will UK even exist in 50 yrs?

This Bangladeshi Islamist is called Mohammed Asaduzzaman and he has just been elected mayor of Brighton in UK. Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/zlYrQ7kq2k — RadioGenoa (@RadioGenoa) May 18, 2024

Don’t waste your time to answer To this hypocritical non-white : he is an envious liar who – against all evidences – keeps on bashing whites on this site, while ignoring Jewish malevolence. Countless persons tried to reason with this useless moron, he doesn’t read their post, doesn’t answer and will continue to bash whites at the next opportunity. Ignore this shithead.

We are waiting your trip to gaza to bring help To your fellow non whites, hypocrite.

the average IQ of the White nations is 100, the average of the East Asian ones is 105

In all this discussion, it is important to remember that the IQ of the white US population has had a significant admixture of lower IQ brown and black immigrants muddying their cognitive ability for at least 150 years, while Asia has not had such “diversity.” So the US has has succeeded in spite of oftentimes malevolent intentions and forces against her white population.

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