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Phenomenon of Trending Nationalistic Policies Around the World 1 PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 1 Phenomenon of Trending Nationalistic Policies Around the World Christopher E. Hernandez Global Studies and Maritime Affairs CSU Maritime Academy PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 2 Abstract This paper will be working on the topic of the role of globalization and the growing national sentiment around the world that has begun with a handful of states and a few who are amongst the top three superpowers. It will dive deeper into understanding why states of various strengths have taken this approach and why. Since the fall of the USSR and the ending of the Cold War, there have been many international organizations created and other agreements to help the benefit the relationship between countries who aligned themselves with one another. The more connected states are, the more beneficial the relationship becomes is how the majority of the world sees it. But recently there has been a growth in national sentiment and states who are pursuing to separate themselves from others meaning they have their own reasons for exclusion. PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 3 Introduction The premise of this paper is learning about the ongoing trend in countries around the globe in taking strong stances and promoting more nationalistic polices. The matter is important since there was been statements regarding the state of nationalism currently in the world and is unclear if it will make a reappearance in the 21st century since many scholars have predicted the state of nationalism will not ever be as strong as it was in the 19th century. Countries around the world since 2016 have led some to believe that perhaps we will begin to see more of the same ideological behavior further into the future. Every country has their own unique situation in reasoning to why they have changed or are preparing to alter their policies domestically and foreign. It was seen in the 2016 U.S. election to Brexit, the nationalist polices pushed by the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In addition, there has been a higher success rate from conservative and nationalistic parties in Italy, Germany and Austrian elections in 2017 and 2018. There is significant difference of policies from before and the new ones implemented recently such as buffing defense along with security and regulations pertaining to migrants and trade. Some of these go into studies as far as the economic state of countries who pursued different endeavors, treatment from IGOs and other areas of interest revolving around domestic issues of states. Many articles both against and for pro nationalist policies have been published over the past ten years and continue to increase to present day. The volume of media traffic orbiting the subject indicated there has been more discussion from local to federal level of countries. Many of them showing signs of pro nationalistic policies and wanting to bring back their own identity that has been lost in the past decade. Some are cultural issues, financial dilemmas, ethnic tensions and loss of security from external threats. PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 4 Phenomenon of Trending Nationalistic Policies Around the World The topic will be focused on the growing national sentiment and the relationship with the globalized system currently in place. It will be also looking into sources regarding to the phenomenon taking place around world and quickly spreading interest to other nations. Factors that have an influence and have been demonstrated in the historic events are beginning to make a resurgence once again and causing a chain reaction with states around the globe. From a physiological point for the shift from a globalized attitude to a nationalistic interest, Nigel Barber mentions populations tend to switch political affiliations when they feel a sense of insecurity or a decrease in income. Like the 1930s during the great depression and affected Europe generated unhappiness in the population leading to a cooperative movement to a resolution by any means necessary. This led to two entirely different directions where Germany took matter into their own hands whereas the United States benefited from the actions of Germany and turning the nation into an industrial war machine (“The Resurgence of Nationalism,” 2018). The next source regarding to factors in which nations pursue national interest over international cooperative objectives comes from financial triggers. Mourduokoutas explains events leading to the great depression in the 1930s referring to the wealth distribution being stretched too far and often draining some economies to the point that those economies need that wealth to sustain (Mourdoukoutas, 2019). Another factor contributing to the transition is the current interest of the five great powers. As it has been in history in ancient times, the most powerful nation dictate policy and depending what direction stronger powers pursue, smaller states will follow to remain on negotiating conditions for the benefit of their own existence (Shulman, 2002). To also understand why their tension in the international relations to go towards national or international interests is because the infrastructure and governing organization have been heavily built around PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 5 globalism and developing a new system doesn’t happen overnight (Bieber, 2018). Other reasons come from countries since the second world war and proxy conflicts during the cold war felt they have been unfairly represented and heavily sanctioned because of events that took place in the past. In turn they have begun to break away from the international governing system and focus on policies to help their own people (Duara, 2018). Looking into social triggers, Kenan Malik looked at how Europe has embraced the idea of multiculturalism as the answer to unify Europe and other groups of people abroad entering the European continent. Kenan reviews and analyzes how this concept was viewed in contrast today where leaders from Germany and U.K. have denounced multiculturalism and its dangers (Malik, 2019). Another source relating to this topic is the article by Huntington where he argues certain civilizations naturally cannot merge and categorizes them by cultural and religious identities where future problems will be derived from the conflict of cultures (Huntington, Samuel P., 1997). Conceptualizing the Basis of Nationalism: Understanding nationalism is a complex and very multidimensional of a concept to comprehend which it encompasses several disparate but a related phenomenon. The term nationalism has been used in a variety of ways where it can make its perception of the meaning very confusing simply because it has been utilized by scholars in various social sciences. One the major impediments to scientific progress in the field of social science is that scholars will speak from their own side and often pass one another using the same terminology. This then skews the meaning of Nationalism and commonly is misrepresented to what its true meaning is. To understand the basis and meaning of Nationalism, we first must organize and conceptualize nationalism’s disparate uses because the term nationalism will reflect much differently depending on what group, culture and ethnicity it is associated with. There are also varying consequences PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 6 with the behavior of national ideals when complemented with differing states, political actors and ethnicity. When looking at nationalism, it exists in identities that can be separated by personal or group association. At a personal level or from an individual perspective, people may consider themselves to belong to something such as their own country and this then establishes them to have their own national identity. When you look at it from an association from a group, people will have certain characteristics or unifying ideals that makes them come to together under one nation. When coming together from various groups but have the same distinguishing attributes it creates a criterion of membership. Previous scholars have gone into the studies of nationalism but have referenced it to distinction between civil, ethnic and cultural nationalism (Duara, 2018). Membership in civic nations comes down to the status of citizenship or represent for political institutions with an emphasis on enforcing and retaining laws. This gives members of those interest the desire to apart of the nation with a promise of being protected in those areas. Membership in ethnic national cultures is more on the focus of shared common characteristics which could range from language, race or even having the same religious preference. The second dimension of nationalism resides in ideology where nationalist put forward the action to defend and promote the very vital interest of the nation. These interest under ideological terms come out to be formalized as wither doctrines which we have seen before used on the international scale by the United States. Doctrines generally entail the primary objectives nationalist desire to pursue in attaining autonomy for their country whether it is existing within a state or acting as an independent one. What follows is the promotion of unity and to advance their interest nationalist must gather members in order to form a single state or it can be a form of political unity. This can also be done by using psychological unity by in order to acquire more PHENOMENON OF TRENDING NATIONALISTIC POLICIES AROUND THE WORLD 7 cohesion within the nation by developing an identity for their group by using culture to increase their overall reputation. The final dimension of nationalism are the concerns for the group, and this is most likely best to call it sentiment since it will refer often to peoples’ overall moral orientation toward their own nation. There are three types of sentiment that can be broken down labeled as attachment, chauvinism and submission.
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