Future of the Globalization vs Nationalism divide

[PoliticalShelter]

In recent years in Europe and America, we’ve seen a rise in salience of issues that can be categorized as having a internationalist vs nationalist divide. The most prominent being immigration (and issues that come with it such as integration) but also trade and membership of pan-national groups such as the EU. These issues have already shifted traditional political coalitions throughout the West, such as moving post-industrial areas to right wing parties and big metropolitan cities to left/liberal parties.


My question is how prominent do you think this divide will be in the future. Given the rise of issues like climate change (and the displacement of peoples affected by climate change) and the demands of greater global governance coming from environmentalists (and other groups) I tend to believe it will continue to play a significant role for a while to come.

[CumbrianLefty]

It will count for something, maybe a great deal. It will never count for everything.

[Annatar]

In the west the divide will remain prominent, but the west matters less each year as its share  of world economic output declines, globally virtually all of the major powers and regional powers have nationalist governments outside the west, the western world is kind of a weird liberal outlier. China, Russia and India, the 3 strongest states not aligned with America are all nationalist oriented in their governance. In the Islamic world, the 3 strongest states in the Middle East, Saudia Arabia, Turkey and Iran are also quite nationalist, in the long run younger people in Saudi Arabia etc. seem to be getting less religious but more nationalist.

As the share of global economic output that say China or India accounts for continues to rise and the west continues to decline there will be interesting questions in the west, how do declining western states that are oriented towards liberalism handle a world where the growing powers don't embrace liberal values. I personally think western countries will simply reach an accommodation, look at how happy Germany is to go along with China despite China not being liberal.

[vitoNova]

The Future is Globalism.

The Future is Female.

LOL at American whyte males who never travelled outside their trailer park.  And who overdosed on opiates for 8 years straight during the Obama years.   

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

What CumbrianLeftie said.

Also, there are many Western countries with multi-party systems and many moving parts. It's not clear to me that everything will perfectly align and similar parties will receive strong and weak support in the same places, if you understand what I mean.

[CumbrianLefty]

LOL at American whyte males who never travelled outside their trailer park.  And who overdosed on opiates for 8 years straight during the Obama years.   

LOL indeed, how many such people are there really though?

[Crumpets]

I'm not sure if globalization vs. nationalism is the right dichotomy here. Russia, Iran, and China all have strongly nationalist governments, but are also extremely active in global affairs and maintain a global military presence. Meanwhile, countries like Iceland, South Africa, and New Zealand are not exactly nationalist stalwarts, but do tend to take a backseat in global affairs and don't exactly go around the world trying to impose their will. I think there are two more accurate dichotomies to look at: Globalization vs. isolationism and multiculturalism vs. (ethno)nationalism. While people will often use the language of the former to discuss the later (see Brexit), they are definitely separate debates. As far as the former goes, unless you're in North Korea, globalization has won out, and debates over things like TPP and NAFTA are just fussing around the edges. As far as multiculturalism vs. nationalism goes, I think it's more anybody's game, even if I fall strongly on the multicultural side of the debate. I don't see this argument being "resolved" or "won out" anytime in the coming decades, or even within my lifetime, as much as I may want to live in the Star Trek world.