🔗 Share this article

Nigel Farage depicts his Reform UK party as a unique occurrence that has burst on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an remarkable historic moment. However this week, in every one of the continent's major countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to the United States and Argentina, hard-right, anti-immigration, anti-globalization parties similar to his are also ahead in the public surveys.

During recent Czech voting, the conservative, pro-Putin populist a prominent figure overthrew prime minister Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just brought down yet another French prime minister, is ahead the polls for both the presidential race and the legislature. In the German nation, the right-wing AfD party is currently the most popular party. Hungary’s Fidesz party, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian coalition and the Brothers of Italy are already in government, while the Freedom party of Austria (FPÖ), the Netherlands’ Freedom party (PVV) and Belgium’s Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of opponents of global cooperation, inspired by right-wing influencers such as a well-known figure, aiming to dethrone the global legal order, diminish human rights and undermine international collaboration.

The Populist Nationalist Surge

This nationalist wave exposes a recent undeniable reality that democrats ignore at our peril: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “India first”, “Chinese emphasis”, “Russian primacy”, “group priority” and often “exclusive group focus” regimes. It is this nationalist sentiment that helps explain why the world is now composed of many autocratic states and fewer democratic ones, and this ideology is the driver behind the violations of global human rights standards not just by one nation in conflict but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Root Causes Explained

Crucial to grasp the underlying forces, widespread globally, that have driven this new age of nationalism. It starts with a broadly shared perception that a globalisation that was open but not inclusive has been a unregulated system that has not been fair to all.

Over the past ten years, leaders have not only been slow to respond to the many people who feel left out and marginalized, but also to the changing balance of global economic power, moving us from a unipolar world once dominated by the US to a multipolar world of competing superpowers, and from a rules-based order to a might-makes-right approach. The ethnic nationalism that this has incited means open commerce is being replaced by trade barriers. Where economics used to drive government policies, the nationalist agendas is now driving economic decisions, and already over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies marked out by bringing production home and friend-shoring and by restrictions on cross-border trade, investment and technology transfer, sinking global collaboration to its weakest point since 1945.

Optimism in Public Opinion

But all is not lost. The cement is still wet, and even as it solidifies we can find hope in the pragmatism of the global public. In a recent survey for a major foundation, of 36,000 people in dozens of nations we find a significant portion are more resistant to an exclusionary nationalism and more willing to embrace international cooperation than many of the officials who govern them.

Globally there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a limited number of hardened anti-internationalists representing 16.5% of the global population (even if a quarter in the United States currently) who either feel coexistence between diverse communities is impossible or have a zero-sum mindset that if they or their country do well, it has to be at the expense of others doing badly.

However there are another 21% at the other end, whom we might call committed internationalists, who either still see international collaboration through free commerce as a positive sum win-win, or are what a prominent philosopher calls “locally engaged global citizens”.

Worldwide Public Position

Most people of the world's citizens are somewhere in between: not narrow, inward-looking nationalists, as “US priority” ideology would suggest, or fully global citizens. They are patriotic but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “our side” and the “others”, opponents always divided from each other in an unbridgeable divide.

Do the majority in the middle favor a duty-free or a responsible global community? Are they willing to accept responsibilities beyond their garden gate or city wall? Affirmative, under certain conditions. A initial segment, 22%, will back humanitarian action to alleviate hardship and are ready to act out of selflessness, backing emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” multilateralists feel the pain of others and believe in something bigger than themselves.

Another segment comprising a similar percentage are practical cooperators who want to know that any taxes paid for international development are used effectively. And there is a third group, 21%, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it advantages them and their local areas, whether it be through guaranteeing them basic necessities or safety and stability.

Building a Cooperative Majority

Thus a clear majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for global action to deal with worldwide issues, like environmental emergency and pandemic prevention, as long as this case is argued on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we emphasize the mutual advantages that flow to them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we work together from necessity or if we have a necessity for collaboration, the answer is both.

And this openness to work internationally shows how we can turn back the xenophobic tide: we can overcome current pessimistic, inward-looking and often aggressive and authoritarian nationalism that vilifies immigrants, foreigners and “different groups” as long as we advocate for a optimistic, outward-looking and welcoming patriotism that responds to people’s desire to belong and connects to their everyday worries.

Addressing Public Concerns

And while in-depth polls tell us that across the Western nations, unauthorized entry is currently the biggest national issue – and it's clear that it must promptly be brought under control – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the people are even more concerned about what is happening in their personal circumstances and within their immediate neighborhoods. Recently, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can overcome what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “in decline” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and community.

However, as the leader also reminded us, the far right is more interested in using complaints than ending them. A Reform leader hailed a disastrous mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget” since 1986. But he would also implement a similar plan – what was planned – the biggest ever cuts in public services. The party's proposal to cut government expenditure by a huge sum would not repair downtrodden communities but damage them, turn citizen against citizen and wreck any sense of unity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, impaired, poor or vulnerable. Every day from now on, and in every electoral district, Reform should be asked which hospital, which school and which public service will be the first to be reduced or closed.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond fiscal restraint. What the public are indicating all over the west is that they want their governments to restore our financial systems and our civic societies. “Reform” and its international partners should be revealed repeatedly for plans that would devastate both. And for those of us who believe our best days could be in the future, we can go beyond highlighting Reform’s hypocrisy by setting out a argument for a improved nation that resonates not just to idealists, but to pragmatists, to self-interest, and to the everyday compassion of the nation's citizens.