Elites Are Getting Nationalism All Wrong
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/27/elites-nationalism-wrong-russia-ukraine-europe-trump/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/04/27/elites-nationalism-wrong-russia-ukraine-europe-trump/
Stephen M. Walt, the Robert and Renée Belfer professor
of international relations at Harvard University, notes:
Elites may also discount the power of nationalism if they spend their lives in a transnational, cosmopolitan bubble. If you go to the World Economic Forum conference held in Davos, Switzerland, every year; do business deals all over the world; hang out with like-minded people from lots of different countries; and are as comfortable living abroad as you are in your native country, it’s easy to lose sight of how people outside your social circle retain powerful attachments to places, local institutions, and their own sense of belonging to a nation. Liberalism’s emphasis on the individual and his/her/their individual rights is another blind spot, insofar as it directs our gaze away from the social bonds and commitments to group survival that many groups view as more important than individual freedom.
Elites may also discount the power of nationalism if they spend their lives in a transnational, cosmopolitan bubble. If you go to the World Economic Forum conference held in Davos, Switzerland, every year; do business deals all over the world; hang out with like-minded people from lots of different countries; and are as comfortable living abroad as you are in your native country, it’s easy to lose sight of how people outside your social circle retain powerful attachments to places, local institutions, and their own sense of belonging to a nation. Liberalism’s emphasis on the individual and his/her/their individual rights is another blind spot, insofar as it directs our gaze away from the social bonds and commitments to group survival that many groups view as more important than individual freedom.