Nationalist Backlash Research Articles

Backlash Against “Others”

Right wing populist movements are challenging established political parties and institutions, including higher education. The discourse and platforms of these movements are a nationalistic backlash against elites and “others” that are antithetical to all that universities at their best stand for. But universities would do well to refocus on class-based inequities that also underlie this shift, in ways that rebalance the global and local.

Backlash Against “Others”

Right wing populist movements are challenging established political parties and institutions, including higher education. The discourse and platforms of these movements are a nationalistic backlash against elites and “others” that are antithetical to all that universities at their best stand for. But universities would do well to refocus on class-based inequities that also underlie this shift, in ways that rebalance the global and local.

Foreign Military Interventions and Suicide Attacks

This study examines the effect of foreign military interventions on the incidence of suicide attacks. It presents three theoretical explanations. Foreign military interventions may boost insurgent use of suicide attacks by (a) fomenting a nationalist backlash that sanctions the use of more extreme and unconventional tactics like suicide attacks, (b) providing more and better targets against which suicide attacks can be launched, or (c) prompting insurgents to use suicide tactics in order to overcome their power asymmetries and to confront better defended targets that are enhanced by interventions. We test these competing explanations using a battery of statistical tests on cross-national, time-series data for 138 countries during the period from 1981 to 2005. We find that only foreign interventions with specific features—pro-government interventions involving larger numbers of ground troops—boost suicide attacks in countries experiencing interventions. This finding suggests that by tipping the balance of power against insurgents and hardening targets in the context of assisting a local government, foreign military interventions are likely to increase the use of suicide attacks by regime challengers.

Beyond politics of privatization: a reinterpretation of Turkish exceptionalism

ABSTRACTThis paper probes into the underlying factors for the exceptionally slow progress of mass privatizations in Turkey until the first decade of the 21st century. Challenging the mainstream political economy perspectives which often interpret Turkish ‘exceptionalism’ by focusing either on rationally motivated actors articulating their interests or on flaws in the institutional infrastructure as decisive impediments, the paper emphasizes the role of ideology, and particularly of national developmentalism, as a long-term, deep-rooted structural dynamic shaping the fate of privatization attempts in the 1980s and 1990s. While they clearly triggered a strong nationalist backlash, large-scale privatizations could still be realized at a particular historical juncture when the confluence of three deep-seated social fault lines—Turkey’s integration into the global economy, the accession process to the European Union and the rise of a new bourgeoisie—prevailed over a strong ideological mindset that prevented for decades the institutionalization of a market economy in Turkey.

Should the EU Protect Democracy and the Rule of Law inside Member States?

AbstractAgainst the background of recent developments in Hungary, the article discusses the question whether the European Union ought to play a role in protecting liberal democracy in Member States. First, it is argued that the EU has the authority to do so, both in a broad normative sense and in a narrower legal sense (though the latter is more likely to be disputed). The article then asks whether the EU has the capacity to establish a supranational militant democracy; here it is argued that at the moment both appropriate legal instruments and plausible political strategies are missing. To remedy this situation, the article proposes a new democracy watchdog, analogous to, but more powerful than, the Venice Commission. Finally, it is asked whether EU interventions would provoke a nationalist backlash. There is insufficient evidence to decide this question, but the danger of such a backlash probably tend to be overestimated.

New capitalist processes, interdependence and the Asia–US private equity relationship

Private equity has had a short but eventful history in East Asia, characterized first by US firm dominance and then by a nationalistic backlash. This article charts these earlier patterns, but argues that significant developments have taken place since the early 2000s, which have strengthened the position of private equity capital in the Asian political economy. As private equity deal-making has returned to Asia, new linkages have been formed between US private equity funds and local private equity players. Of particular importance have been US–Asian joint ventures, Asian nationals returning to domestic firms from US private equity houses and supportive local elites in the banking and pension fund sectors. The significance is two-fold. First, the spread of private equity has been founded on interdependent relationships between US actors and local actors, which have more successfully grounded the private equity industry in national political economies than its origins in the Asian crisis period. Second, despite the relative localization of Asian private equity, industry practices are still largely shaped by the US model of private equity and the merger and acquisition activity that it entails, rather than a distinct Asian private equity model. The findings of the article contribute to calls that have been made for research on the changing global economy that comprehensively integrates domestic and international levels of analysis.

Der Aufstieg Chinas und die neuen Kräftekonstellationen in Ostasien

In the wake of the global slump, China emerged as a major „winner” of worldwide economic and political rebalancing. The paper tries to evaluate the effects of the ascent of China with special regard to current power relations in East Asia. Although China gains in importance and has spearheaded several of the steps toward regional cooperation, there will be no far-reaching political integration under the hegemonic leadership of Beijing in the foreseeable future. In a world marked by economic turbulence, nationalist backlash and American and Japanese challenges to „Sinocentered” Asian regionalism, disintegration tendencies and rivalries will not easily come to an end.

The British Army, “Military Europe,” and the American War of Independence

IF the eighteenth-century British and Irish looked west, into the Atlantic, they also looked south and east, to the neighboring Continent. They engaged widely and deeply with the rest of Europe, as their historians are beginning to appreciate more fully. German monarchs; strategic interests, especially in the Low Countries and Germany, but also in the Baltic and Portugal; extensive trade and investment; religious affiliations; a broadly shared high culture; intellectual engagement through the republic of letters; the movement of peoples, as tourists, merchants, retailers, technicians, and craftsmen in search of work and opportunities—these were just some of the Continental connections of Britain and Ireland. The closeness of the links could provoke a patriotic or even nationalistic backlash. But they could just as easily lead to a sense that the British and Irish were part of a larger Europe.1

'A Crisis of Affluence': the Politics of an Economic Breakdown in Iceland

This article deals with the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008 and its impact on society, politics and foreign relations. It approaches the crisis from the perspectives of the politics of memory, transnational discourses on 'weak states' and the destabilisation of fixed foreign and security policy identities. It discusses how transitional justice has become a vehicle for addressing issues of responsibility and culpability for the crash. It also shows how Iceland, while facing a 'crisis of affluence', has coped with going through the experience of a 'Third World' country dependent on a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. These political, moralistic, legal and economic processes together with a protracted dispute with Britain and the Netherlands over the so-called Icesave issue have generated a nationalistic backlash against Iceland's EU membership bid, contributed to political and economic uncertainty and underscored a lack of strategic direction in foreign policy.

'A Crisis of Affluence': the Politics of an Economic Breakdown in Iceland

This article deals with the collapse of the Icelandic banking system in 2008 and its impact on society, politics and foreign relations. It approaches the crisis from the perspectives of the politics of memory, transnational discourses on 'weak states' and the destabilisation of fixed foreign and security policy identities. It discusses how transitional justice has become a vehicle for addressing issues of responsibility and culpability for the crash. It also shows how Iceland, while facing a 'crisis of affluence', has coped with going through the experience of a Third World' country dependent on a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. These political, moralistic, legal and economic processes—together with a protracted dispute with Britain and the Netherlands over the so-called Icesave issue—have generated a nationalistic backlash against Iceland's EU membership bid, contributed to political and economic uncertainty and underscored a lack of strategic direction in foreign policy.

Denationalization of Citizenship? The Turkish Experience1

Turkism as a political project aiming at the construction of a Turkish national identity was spelled out in 1904. The realization of this project included processes of assimilation and exclusion of non-Turkish and non-Muslim “others”. There was also an attempt on the part of the Republican elite to construct oblivion in the society about the multicultural Ottoman past in order to constitute a Turkish national identity. Hence, Turkish citizenship emerged as membership to a national state defined on the basis of a single religion (Sunni sect of Islam) and single language (Turkish). The increasing visibility of the non-Turkish and non-Muslim identities in the 1990s unleashed a process of denationalization of citizenship. Denationalization of citizenship gained momentum after Turkey's official candidacy in the European Union in 1999. Many reforms were undertaken in the parliament towards the utilization of languages other than Turkish as well as the practice of multiple religions. These reforms were upheld by the activities of civil societal organizations in order to portray the presence of multicultural identities in Turkey. Unless reversed by a nationalist backlash, these processes point to the denationalization of citizenship in Turkey.

The British occupation of Mesopotamia, 1914–1922

During World War I the military campaign in Mesopotamia placed enormous demands on local man- and animal power to provide the logistical resources vital to its conduct. This required the British civil and military authorities to construct a wartime state apparatus that filled the administrative vacuum left by the retreating Ottomans and made possible its downward penetration and mobilisation of local resources for the war effort. This article examines the interaction of politics and logistics in Mesopotamia and views the enhanced wartime levels of resource extraction in light of the British attempts to codify their presence in the country after 1918 and the nationalist backlash that resulted.

‘Foreigners’, Nationalism and the ‘Colonial Fracture’

The riots that shook the French banlieues in 2005, while unique in their geographic extension and political resonance, are but the most recent manifestation of an ongoing escalation of violence and repression that has periodically rocked the economically devastated, socially fractured and highly cosmopolitan cityscape of post-industrial France. The stigmatization of unemployed youths and outcast working-class families as ‘foreign’ is a complex and multi-layered phenomenon. This article traces the history of the so-called ‘immigrant problem’, and of policy responses to it, from the time of the Algerian war to the republican nationalist backlash against multiculturalism over the past two decades. The trauma of decolonization, increased visibility of Maghrebi, West African, Antillian and other communities with origins outside of Europe, fears of ‘islamicization’, and political/ideological controversies over how the nation's history should be remembered and taught to future generations, have weighed heavily on the representation of immigrants and their descendants as unassimilated threats to national cohesion. Far from limiting their agency to criminality and random social violence, the youths of the banlieues have played an active role in redefining the terms in which citizenship and national identity, as well as the colonial heritage of France, are cast in the arena of public debate, challenging state policies and well-entrenched historical myths in the process.

Turkey on the brink

It is time to revisit the conventional wisdom that Turkey has no strategic options other than the West. The problem today is not Islamization, but a growing nationalist frustration with the United States and Europe. All the ingredients for a Turkish nationalist backlash are in place.

Ensuring Energy Security

On the eve of World War I, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill made a historic decision: to shift the power source of the British navy’s ships from coal to oil. He intended to make the fleet faster than its German counterpart. But the switch also meant that the Royal Navy would rely not on coal from Wales but on insecure oil supplies from what was then Persia. Energy security thus became a question of national strategy. Churchill’s answer? “Safety and certainty in oil,” he said, “lie in variety and variety alone.” Since Churchill’s decision, energy security has repeatedly emerged as an issue of great importance, and it is so once again today. But the subject now needs to be rethought, for what has been the paradigm of energy security for the past three decades is too limited and must be expanded to include many new factors. Moreover, it must be recognized that energy security does not stand by itself but is lodged in the larger relations among nations and how they interact with one another. Energy security will be the number one topic on the agenda when the group of eight highly industrialized countries (g-8) meets in St. Petersburg in July.The renewed focus on energy security is driven in part by an exceedingly tight oil market and by high oil prices, which have doubled over the past three years. But it is also fueled by the threat of terrorism, instability in some exporting nations, a nationalist backlash, fears of a scramble for supplies, geopolitical rivalries, and countries’ fundamental need for energy to power their economic growth.

Aux armes et caetera! La réappropriation de la nation en vue d'une critique culturelle

Gainsbourg’s 1979 release Aux armes et cætera, an album entirely recorded in Kingston with legendary reggae musicians, takes French song where it had never geographically or musically gone before. In retrospect, we might be tempted to dismiss this cover of the French national anthem; after all, Gainsbourg had already borrowed other musical genres like jazz and disco. Yet, while Gainsbourg’s previous work had earned him recognition as a major innovator of French song somewhat because of his playful and provocative eccentricities, this song was met with a scathing, overtly anti-Semitic and nationalist backlash. Gainsbourg’s play with genres (national anthem, French song, and reggae) touched on sour spots of French identity. years later, Big Red recovers Gainsbourg’s cover of the national anthem on his release Big Redemption. While Gainsbourg only minimally alters the words of ‘La Marseillaise,’ letting the genre itself perform the critique, Big Red’s release remilitarizes and desexualizes the cover while inverting and re-inscribing the roles of revolutionary and oppressor in the contemporary dynamics of popular culture and postcoloniality. His recovery of the national anthem becomes a performance of the ‘empire singing back.’

Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War

Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War

Shamans versus Pirates in the Amazonian Treasure Chest

This article explores how the recent rise of shamans as political representatives in Brazil addresses tensions and contradictions associated with the internationalization of indigenous rights movements. Identity politics and transnational organizational alliances concerning issues of environmentalism and human rights have greatly expanded the political leverage and influence of indigenous activism. However, some transnational environmentalist discourses collide with Brazilian discourses of national sovereignty, and the 1990s witnessed a nationalist backlash against Indians, whom politicians, military leaders, and media commentators have frequently portrayed as pawns of foreign imperialists. Opponents of indigenous rights also seized on apparent contradictions between rhetoric and action to discredit indigenous claims to environmental resources. The analysis examines how the shift to redefine knowledge as the core of indigenous identity circumvents some of these liabilities by shifting the basis for indigenous rights claims from environmental practices to environmental knowledge. As shamans mobilize and speak out against the threat of biopiracy, they blunt the nationalist backlash, repositioning indigenous peoples as defenders of the national patrimony and solid citizens of the Brazilian nationstate. [Keywords: Brazil, indigenous peoples, identity politics, shamans, biopiracy]

Eurokid and Colonel Blimp

National identity goes far deeper than a European one and, if we want to avoid a nationalist backlash as in Austria, it would be better for us to live with that reality

Hang separately: cooperative security between the United States and Russia, 1985-1994

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has, at times, displayed a reluctance to think cooperatively about its security. Nowhere has the U.S. propensity to coerce rather than cooperate been more pronounced uor more profoundly misguided uthan in its dealings with the Soviet Union and its successor state, Russia. According to Sigal, the United States has fumbled its great opportunity to address the new nuclear dangers caused by the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Moscow was prepared to reduce radically its nuclear arsenal and dispose of its weapons-grade material. But instead of treating Russia as an ally, the realists who dominated American foreign policy sought to extract the maximum advantage in every negotiation, alienating Russia's democrats and provoking a nationalist backlash.