Stefan Berger, Thomas Fetzer, ed.. Nationalism and the Economy: Explorations into a Neglected Relationship. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2019. 330 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-963-386-198-1.

Reviewed by Peter Rutland

Published on H-Diplo (August, 2019)

Commissioned by Seth Ofenbach (Bronx Community College, The City University of New York)

There is a dearth of literature on the intersec‐ an economic unit” (p. 90). Etges notes that one tion of economics and nationalism, a subject that reason people associate nationalism with protec‐ was frst broached in a pivotal 2005 collection tionism is that sectoral groups lobbying for tarif edited by Eric Helleiner and Andreas Pickel, Eco‐ protection have often succeeded in framing their nomic Nationalism in a Globalizing World. A own narrow interests as the national interest. Google ngram search records the frst use of the In his review of the political economy litera‐ term “economic nationalism” in 1898, with a ture, Fetzer notes that economic nationalism is sharp peak in usage in 1938, after which it fell of typically tied to questions of protecting national by two-thirds by the mid-1950s. Stefan Berger and security or the welfare state, seen as threatened Thomas Fetzer have assembled a team of a dozen by expanded foreign trade. In contrast, liberal na‐ authors to tackle the question, through a mixture tionalists (a term not used in the book) have long of literature reviews and case studies. They right‐ argued that participation in the liberal interna‐ ly argue that nationalism scholars tend to focus tional order can be key to a nation’s long-run eco‐ on state power and cultural representation at the nomic prosperity and hence power and prestige. expense of economics, while economists in turn This worked for Britain in the nineteenth century largely overlook the question of nationalism. One and the United States in the post-1945 world, and strength of the collection is its interdisciplinary since 1991 it has become integral to the neoliberal nature; one drawback is that most of the fourteen thinking that dominates policymaking in most chapters focus on Europe (there is one chapter on countries of the world. land policy in Israel and one on the Chinese dias‐ Oliver Kuhschelm provides a handy review of pora). the literature on consumption and national identi‐ One of the central arguments in the book is ty. Consumerism was traditionally treated as or‐ that economic nationalism should be understood thogonal to nationalism. The 1920s saw the rise of as a broader phenomenon than mere protection‐ “buy national campaigns,” but it is unclear how ism—the creation of tarif and other barriers to efective they were in actually shaping consumer deter foreign trade and investment. Berger and behavior or beliefs. Kuhschelm notes there is a Fetzer instead prefer Andreas Etges’s defnition of tension between promoting “buy national” at “thinking and acting with regard to the nation as home and promoting national goods in export H-Net Reviews markets. He includes some references to Mexico Fund owned about half the Jewish land (about 10 and Japan but his main examples are Austria and percent of the total) and would not allow it to be Switzerland. Kuhschelm’s chapter includes the sold to Arabs (p. 105). Metzger briefy surveys the only image in the whole book: an ad for Austrian land ownership regime in other nation-building wafers. This refects a broader defciency in na‐ projects, such as the Baltic states in the 1990s. tionalism studies: a preference for text over im‐ Zarko Lazarevic notes that economic dispari‐ age, even though images have always been cen‐ ties between Yugoslavia’s regions marred the tral to nationalist narratives. country since its inception in 1918. Decentraliza‐ Similarly, Mads Mordhorst provides a useful tion to allow the diverse regions to pursue inde‐ review of the rise of nation branding, a concept pendent economic policies (as in the 1974 consti‐ launched by Simon Anholt in 1998. Globalization tutional reform, which included the creation of has not made nations irrelevant; rather, it has six republican central banks) paved the way for shifted their narrative focus from internal com‐ the “nationalization” of the regional Communist munity construction to external branding in the parties (p. 128). The poorer regions were hit by global marketplace. Originally, nation branding the economic stagnation of the socialist bloc in the referred to the value added when marketing a 1970s, and the author argues that the end of so‐ product as from country X, but later it came to cialism elsewhere in Europe meant that the col‐ mean trying to promote an image of the nation it‐ lapse of Yugoslavia was inevitable. The chapter self. Mordhorst sees nation branding as a grab would have benefted from the inclusion of some bag of marketing tools (also used to brand places basic data on the economic disparities between and corporations), with scant regard for the his‐ the north and the south of the country. The author torical context. There is little evidence that na‐ completely sidesteps the question of politics: there tion-branding campaigns have had any actual im‐ is no discussion about what happened in World pact on perceptions of the country in question War II, and Josip Tito’s name is never mentioned. among target audiences (tourists, investors, etc.). Sergiu Delcea examines welfare policy as a Harold James’s chapter, “Visions of Europe,” tool of nation-building, using the case of 1930s Ro‐ revisits the shift from culture to realpolitik in Ger‐ mania, where the state sought to promote the many after 1848 and the fusion of business and growth of an ethnically Romanian urban middle war in Krupp’s Age of Steel. Economic determin‐ class. The 1921 land reform especially targeted es‐ ism lived on in post-1945 Germany, now severed tates owned by the German and Hungarian mi‐ from its military role. The D-mark became central norities), and the new higher education system to German identity: as of 1988 only 20 percent mass-produced ethnic Romanian bureaucrats. wanted to give it up to join the euro (p. 74). James However, Delcea does not explain exactly how the does not mention the argument—supported by ethnic targeting of the insurance system worked subsequently released documents—that President in practice. François Mitterand forced Helmut Kohl to accept Vera Scepanovic argues that after 1989 in East the euro as the price for German unifcation Central Europe there was a convergence on ac‐ (which France had to approve as one of the four ceptance of free trade and foreign investment, Allied occupying powers).[1] though there was a broad variety in the specifc Jacob Metzer’s study of land ownership in Is‐ policies adopted in each country. Hungary and Es‐ rael argues that the Zionist strategy was borrowed tonia sold most of their industry to foreign buy‐ from Prussian colonization of the Poznan region ers, while the Czechs, Poles, and Slovenes pre‐ in the 1890s. Prior to 1948, the Jewish National ferred vouchers and insider privatization. The

2 H-Net Reviews chapter focuses on the 1990s transition and only trajectory of the various nationalisms.[2] The ac‐ briefy touches on the 2008 crisis, which produced quisition of empire was of course key to the eco‐ a nationalist backlash in Hungary. nomics and ideology of nationalism in the nine‐ Pal Nyiri’s short but insightful chapter shows teenth century; and the loss of empire was central how Beijing has incorporated the Chinese diaspo‐ to nationalist agendas of the late twentieth centu‐ ra into its modernization strategy, fusing appeals ry, and remains so to this day. This myopia refects to patriotism with economic self-interest. Other the tendency of much of the classic nationalism nations, from Korea to India, have also “turned di‐ literature to focus on the building of the national asporas and migrants from suspect outsiders to community within the territory of a given (Euro‐ vital elements of nation-building” (p. 243). This il‐ pean) state.[3] lustrates how nationalism and transnationalism Another important phenomenon outside Eu‐ are intimately connected. rope is the rise of “resource nationalism” in oil Hagen Schulz-Forberg’s contribution discuss‐ and mineral producers from Indonesia to es eforts in the 1930s to develop a transnational Venezuela. A Google ngram search reveals the network around liberal thinkers, such as Walter frst use of the term “resource nationalism” in Lippman and Friedrich Hayek. This essay does 1955, peaking in 1978-82 during the second oil cri‐ not address economic nationalism per se but a sis, and then falling by two-thirds since then. failed liberal cosmopolitanism, so it sits rather un‐ There is a body of scholarly research on the topic easily alongside the other contributions. of resource nationalism, none of it cited in the volume reviewed here.[4] In the concluding chapter, “Economic Euro‐ peanness,” Fetzer notes that earlier conceptions of There is a lively new political economy litera‐ a European social market model have receded as ture, mainly coming out of the US, in which au‐ countries moved in a more American neoliberal thors engage with important questions of the evo‐ direction since the creation of a single market in lution of the nation-state system in the context of 1993. Diferences persist across the countries of globalization. It would have been interesting to Europe, both in institutional practices and elite see this work brought into the debate over nation‐ perceptions. As a result, the promise of a Euro‐ alism. In The Globalization Paradox (2012), Dani pean post-national model remains unfulflled. Rodrik in particular has some important insights into the dilemmas facing democratic governments There is a reason for the paucity of works on trying to pursue national policies in an era of economic nationalism: it requires mastering very global fows of capital (and labor).[5] diferent disciplines and promoting dialogue be‐ tween them. This is hard to do. Even if one brings The essays seem to have been written around together scholars from diferent disciplines (in 2014 hence do not pick up the wave of populism this case, mainly political scientists and economic and economic nationalism that surged in 2016 historians), there is no guarantee that they will di‐ with Brexit and the election of Donald Trump.[6] rectly engage with the ideas and issues of each Part of the peril (and reward!) of studying nation‐ other’s felds. alism is that it is constantly evolving—and not go‐ ing away. Hopefully scholars in North America The focus on Europe is disappointing, given will follow the lead of Berger and Fetzer and rise the vibrancy of current debates over economic to the challenge of explaining the reciprocal rela‐ nationalism in Brazil, China, India, Russia, and tionships between economic globalization and po‐ elsewhere. Moreover, the debate over the Euro‐ litical nationalism through collaborative and in‐ pean model is constrained by the fact that none of terdisciplinary research. the authors addresses the role of empire in the

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Notes [1]. “You Get Unifcation, We Get the Euro,” Der Speigel, October 1, 2010, https://voxeurop.eu/ en/content/article/351531-you-get-unifcation-we- get-euro. [2]. There is passing reference to imperialism on pages 93 and 175. [3]. Benedict Anderson writes about national‐ ism born in the periphery of empire but not about the role of empire in the identity of the British, French, etc. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Com‐ munities: Refections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983). Eric Hobs‐ bawn’s work does directly address the interplay between nation and empire. Eric Hobsbawn, Na‐ tions and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). [4]. Ian Bremmer and Robert Johnston, “The Rise and Fall of Resource Nationalism,” Survival 51, no. 2 (2009): 149-58; and Paul Haslam and Pao‐ lo Heidrich, eds., The Political Economy of Natu‐ ral Resources and Development: From Neoliberal‐ ism to Resource Nationalism (New York: Rout‐ ledge, 2016). [5]. See also Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Pow‐ er, Prosperity, and Poverty (New York: Currency, 2012); and Joseph Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003). [6]. There is a passing reference to these de‐ velopments on page 190. Peter Rutland is professor of government at Wesleyan University. From 2013 to 2018 he was editor in chief of Nationalities Papers, the journal of the Association for the Study of Nationalities. He blogs at www.nationalismwatch.com.

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Citation: Peter Rutland. Review of Berger, Stefan; Fetzer, Thomas, ed. Nationalism and the Economy: Explorations into a Neglected Relationship. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. August, 2019.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=54174

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