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Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism

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Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism H-Nationalism Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism Blog Post published by Yoav Peled on Thursday, December 3, 2020 In this post, Yoav Peled, Tel Aviv University, discusses the relations between ethno- nationalism, neo-liberalism, and right-wing populism. Donald Trump’s failure to be reelected by a relatively narrow margin in the midst of the Coronavirus crisis points to the strength of ethno-national populism in the US, as elsewhere, and raises the question of the relations between nationalism and right- wing populism. Historically, American nationalism has been viewed as the prime example of inclusive civic nationalism, based on “constitutional patriotism.” Whatever the truth of this characterization, in the Trump era American civic nationalism is facing a formidable challenge in the form of White Christian nativist ethno-nationalism that utilizes populism as its mobilizational strategy. The key concept common to both nationalism and populism is “the people.” In nationalism the people are defined through vertical inclusion and horizontal exclusion -- by formal citizenship or by cultural-linguistic boundaries. Ideally, though not necessarily in practice, within the nation-state ascriptive markers such as race, religion, place of birth, etc., are ignored by the state. Populism on the other hand defines the people through both vertical and horizontal exclusion, by ascriptive markers as well as by class position (“elite” vs. “the people”) and even by political outlook. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once famously averred that leftist Jewish Israelis “forgot how to be Jews,” and Trump famously stated that Jewish Americans who vote Democratic are traitors to their country, Israel. Thus when Trump claims that he won the presidency by the vote of the people he is correct, based on his ethno-nationalist populist definition of “the people.” A number of factors are responsible for the wave of ethno-national populist electoral successes in the last two decades, from Donald Trump to Boris Johnson, from Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Viktor Orban, from Benjamin Netanyahu to Narendra Modi: the decline of mediating institutions, especially established “elite” political parties; decline of voter turnout, especially among the young (if in 2016 the 18-29 age group had voted at the same ratio as older voters Bernie Sanders would have probably been elected president of the United States and the UK would have remained in the EU); and the evolution of the new media, the ideal breeding ground for fake news. But the most important underlying cause is neo-liberalism. Neo-liberal globalization, the relatively free movement of capital, commodities, and labor, has caused massive deindustrialization in major parts of the West and, paradoxically perhaps, major Citation: Yoav Peled. Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism. H-Nationalism. 12-03-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/3911/blog/vistas/6909209/nationalism-neo-liberalism-and-ethno-national-populism Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Nationalism immigration waves to the West. These have undermined social, economic, and cultural security, and, on occasion, even the sense of personal physical security for large sectors of the population. It is those people who turned to economic protectionism, anti-immigration policies, and socially conservative positions in an attempt to secure their interests, without questioning the basic structural logic that underlies neo-liberal globalization. The ethno-national state, once they take it over, is their chosen vehicle for trying to achieve this self-contradictory purpose. As is very well known, a major feature of ethno-national populism is mistrust of the liberal, globalizing, cosmopolitan “elite,” especially its governing branch. Between 1964 and 2012 the share of the American population that trusted the federal government declined from 76% to 22%. 1964 was also the year when the first modern right-wing populist presidential candidate – Barry Goldwater – appeared on the scene, paving the way for the Republican party’s “southern strategy,” that appealed, by and large, to the same sector of the population which for Trump constitutes “the people.” The social devastation wrought by neo-liberalism since 1980 increased the size of that sector and greatly aggravated its economic and social insecurity. Ethno-national populism has built on the fear and anger that resulted, and has offered illusory protection against real economic and social insecurity and against the imaginary cultural threats posed by immigration, multiculturalism, and identity politics. While ethno-national populism’s preferred political regime is majoritarian, or “illiberal,” democracy, it displays strong authoritarian tendencies. These may remain hidden in polities with a long liberal-democratic tradition, but in newer democracies they are quite obvious. Thus, the ruling ethno-national populist governments in Poland and Hungary recently rejected the EU economic stimulus plan because the plan had a clause that required recipient countries to respect the rule of law. These authoritarian tendencies are closely tied to another characteristic of ethno-national populism – uncritical loyalty to a “strong” leader. Thus, in 2017 about two-thirds of respondents in Britain, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Belgium agreed that “a strong leader is needed to take the country back from the rich and powerful.” To illustrate, in November 2019 Prime Minister Netanyahu was indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three different cases. After three general election campaigns in one year, 2019-2020, Netanyahu failed to assemble a governing coalition which would have enabled him to form a stable government, primarily because one right-wing party refused to join his government while he was under indictment. So after the third round Netanyahu had to form a dysfunctional Citation: Yoav Peled. Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism. H-Nationalism. 12-03-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/3911/blog/vistas/6909209/nationalism-neo-liberalism-and-ethno-national-populism Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Nationalism government of national unity with the main opposition party. In spite of Netanyahu’s repeated failure to form a right-wing government, and the national unity government’s inept handling of the Coronavirus crisis, his support within his own Likud party has remained solid. Only one Likud leader dared to challenge him in a primary election, and was defeated with a 72:28 ratio. The Likud leadership has remained loyal to Netanyahu because so has his “base,” counting about 35% of the electorate, which did not believe or else did not care that its leader was allegedly involved in major corruption. Who benefits from ethno-national populism? While some ethno-nationalist populists in power, such as Fidesz in Hungary, have pursued moderately redistributive economic policies, in most cases ethno-nationalist populists have not interfered with, but rather enhanced the neo-liberal economic project – tax cuts, privatization, de- regulation, and globalization – to the benefit of the very elite that populism excludes from its definition of “the people” and that for its part disdains the cultural aspects of ethno-national populism (“basket of deplorables”). Marx’s characterization of the regime of Louis Bonaparte in this regard captures the nature of this apparent paradox: Bonaparte, he argued, promoted the economic interests of the French bourgeoisie while trampling over their political and cultural concerns. Posted in: Vistas Citation: Yoav Peled. Nationalism, Neo-Liberalism, and Ethno-National Populism. H-Nationalism. 12-03-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/3911/blog/vistas/6909209/nationalism-neo-liberalism-and-ethno-national-populism Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.
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