I’ve been thinking a lot about the rise in nationalism around the world. As most of us here are in the US, it’s easy to think this is a US thing, but the truth is that India, China, Russia, the US, Brazil, Hungary, Poland, and the Philippines all come to mind immediately as places which have seen a significant electoral move towards nationalism. On top of that, I’d argue Brexit was a nationalist moment, and the nationalists have at least strengthened in both France and Germany. I think even Swedish nationalists had a bit of a moment a few years ago.
What I’m wondering is what people think this means for the international order in the future, and whether past periods of nationalism ascendant are reasonable as potenders of the future we now face, if this path continues.
I’m wondering what the causes are.
I would assume globalization, fear of islamic extremism and covid all play a role. But why is it ‘stupid nationalism’. Many of these nations are picking extremely stupid or inept leaders for their nationalist movements. I don’t know why they’re picking them over competent people.
What does the future hold? I don’t know. I am really hoping that checks and balances are stronger now, and maybe the nationalist movements will burn themselves out. They’ll be elected democratically, then voted out democratically eventually. But in the meantime the war on democracy, ignoring serious political issues (income inequality, health care, climate change) and international aggression will continue.
Do these things come and go in waves? Like if Nazi Germany hadn’t abolished democracy, would they have just been voted out eventually for failure to deliver? The KKK rises then goes away in the US. Maybe fascism will burn itself out as long as the democratic safeguards hold up.
I wonder how much of it is a desire to be what we aren’t.
The world is more globally connected than ever and local community matters less and less. So nationalism fills the void created by not being co-reliant on most of the people you interact with on a day-to-day basis. And the kicker is you have all these globally connected people to feed you the nationalist rhetoric.
Maybe a case of externalizing problems that can’t/won’t be solved internally?
I think the rise in nationalism is mostly due to the less than upper class folks being fleeced by so called globalism. In many highly developed countries this is happening with offshoring. Good jobs being sent to cheaper labor countries. In even lower developed countries, the wealth being off shored. Dodging in country taxes, in country resources being sold off to interests in other countries.
I think these things that are actually people asking to keep their own country wealth and work, in country, is being negatively labeled nationalism, as if it is somehow racist, xenophobic.
Then they should be going after the businesses and CEOs that sent all those jobs overseas and off shore all of the profit.
Instead they get angry at the brown people in other countries that these jobs have been given to. They are mad at and attacking the wrong things rather than the actual people that did this, and they actually support those people and the politicians they sponser.
That’s why they get labeled that way. They need to make better decisions about how to respond to the anger.
I see the OP included China, India and Brazil among the various locations where populist nationalism or nationalist populism as you may call it is grabbing hold – it being about “brown people” is a Euro/North American POV.
ISTM that adapted to each location, more what is happening, is the scenario of leaders noticing that the people are not happy that all the promised benefits of globalization and economic liberalization are not getting to them, and then spinning that around to either rally themselves to power promising to fix that even if they really don’t (e.g. Trump) or to redirect the attention of the people to external or internal threats to make it not be the leaders’ fault (e.g. Xi, Putin)
So it’s more about getting angry "at “outsiders” or “others” that are taking what “we” deserve" – those outsiders being as may be convenient internal minorities, intellectual elites, corporate stockholders, dissenters, foreign powers, conspiracy cabals – and saying that if only “we” stood proud and strong by “our ‘real’ values” to look out for our own kind first, second, and always, we would get things to be good for ourselves.
This, BTW, is very on point –
In many places people felt their greater community of folks just like them once took care of them. Now they feel it doesn’t – even if that’s just a myth, a “good old days” fantasy. So they want to hear promises to Make [their community] Great Again.
Yes, you only need to join any local group on Facebook to see the tribalism raging against change and ‘incomers’. People used to know all their neighbours, they all worked down the same factory and earned similar wages, the high street was teaming with flourishing local shops, their doctor knew their name. That’s no longer true and they’re furious about it.
And social media fuels and lubricates these interactions. People can say anything now without being bothered by someone questioning them or disputing their claims. In Nazi Germany they had to build-up a whole propaganda system and then tightly control the media in order to get the populace to go along with their scheme. Today it’s as simple as posting on a message board, or starting a podcast, and then you get people following you and expanding the sphere of your ideas, as well as meeting like-minded morons around the country and the world. I think the ease of promulgating misinformation and stoking fear of “others” is helping to drive nationalistic feelings in many places.
Nationalism is rising for many reasons.
People have always identified themselves as different from neighbouring groups. Defining themselves by what they are not.
Countries are amalgamations of groups. They may or may not have fully common languages, cultures and histories but this tends to be promoted by central governments who often have leverage over the media.
Globalization has created very big companies that have a lot of influence. This has raised fears of self-sufficiency and security, including in the related energy and technology sectors. Covid has exacerbated these concerns and those of inequality.
It is often easier to blame others than govern well. Open borders and free trade are easy targets especially if perceived or portrayed as creating winners and losers. More so if media and social media control is considerable.
The three dangers, as I see it, to the world economy are the 3 Cs. Competition, cronyism and conflict.
There are many important trade-offs good governments make. Environment vs energy vs economy, for example. You want to support companies without making them uncompetitive. You want real competition, challenging when small and local businesses can be at a disadvantage. You want to limit the control governments have of business, as well as influence businesses have over government. And conflicts between people and countries is often unhelpful or even dangerous on many levels. Companies have many trillions of dollars invested in other countries and global supply chains will still continue to be a thing.
I agree that there’s a ton of wishing for things that never existed wrt “the good old days” and it can be very prominent in the direct rhetoric of nationalists, but I think it’s tapping into something that’s deep and real.
It’s a net positive for society that we have an increasingly global community but that also means that none of us really get to feel as though we live very meaningful lives. The people who really matter to any of us are typically confined to a small group of friends and family. A lot of types of stores have been consolidated from mostly mom-and-pop shops to large chains in the not-so-distant past. More and more of our interactions with other people are becoming transactional.
Our brains are wired to be ready to kill or die for a group of several dozen extended family members who we spend almost all of our lives with. They aren’t wired to be content with or even make sense of a world in which we can interact with people constantly, often virtually, and it doesn’t even have to cross our mind if we really trust them or what kinds of sacrifices we would be willing to make for them.