Too much of anything is good for nothing. Discuss the above statement with respective of
the development of Nationalism in Europe.
Answers
Explanation:
air, nationalism is both ubiquitous and elusive. It permeates the global system, states, peoples’ behavior and can be seen as both conservative and as a revolutionary force, threating the status quo. The end of nationalism has been predicted multiple times. When Eric Hobsbawm wrote his seminal study on nationalism in the 1980s, he saw his subject as a dying breed (Hobsbawm, 1990). Yet, the end of the cold war ushered in a period nationalism, reflected in civil wars and genocide from Yugoslavia to Rwanda. Until recently, that period of nationalist resurgence appeared behind us.
Over the past years, rising nationalism is seen everywhere and in everything. From the election of Donald Trump to Brexit, the nationalist policies of the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the success of far-right parties in Italian, German and Austrian elections in 2017 and 2018, nationalism appears to be on rise globally (Bremmer, 2017; Economist, 2016; Economist, 2017b). News coverage of nationalism has been global, focusing on US elections, and British referendum, but also government policies in Philippines, China and India, as well as in South Africa (Google Trends).
After the defeat of Marine Le Pen in French presidential elections in May 2017, the moderate success of far-right candidates Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Norbert Hofer in Austria, some media have speculated that the nationalist and populist wave might be abating (Baker, 2017). Of course, both perspectives are misleading. Neither is there an inevitable tide of nationalism that is engulfing the world, nor is nationalism universally in decline. Despite shared dynamics and integration, the world remains too diverse to be caught up in a single torrent of nationalism, not to mention that even if this were to be the case, the expressions would be too diverse to form a coherent movement. With their eyes on elections, media easily ignore the structural underpinnings and global dynamics. Citizens of Austria do not turn nationalist because their counterparts in the United States do, nor are the structural similarities so great that there is a universally fertile ground for nationalist movements from India to Kentucky. Nationalism, authoritarianism and populism are also easily conflated, while they can be mutually reinforcing they are distinct and can occur independently. When media talk about nationalism today, they mean a nationalism that includes protectionism, isolationism, xenophobia and anti-elite discourse.