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Globalism and nationalism:

Which one is bad?
Sinisa Malesevic
Published online: 01 Jul 2010.

To cite this article: Sinisa Malesevic (1999) Globalism and nationalism: Which one is
bad?, Development in Practice, 9:5, 579-583, DOI: 10.1080/09614529952684

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 Development in Practice, Volume 9, Number 5, November 1999
Viewpoint
Globalism and nationalism:
which one is bad?
SinisÏ a M alesÏ evicÂ
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Zygmunt Bauman (1998:60 ) points out that
`globalisation is not about what we all, or at
least the most resourceful and enterprising
among us, wish or hope to do. It is about
what is happening to us all.’ Bauman is, of
course, right. The developm ent of new tech-
nologies, m eans, and ways to comm unicate
and exchange information has a direct im -
pact on global changes in the ® elds of econ-
om y, politics, and culture that affects all of
us. Fast production and distribution of infor-
m ation and good s in¯ uence the quick and
relatively painless dislocations of companies
from one part of the globe to another, in
search of a cheaper labour force. Global
economies are also characterised by the al-
m ost daily m ergers of already huge con-
glomerates and companies that seek to
establish new, this time world-scale, m onop -
olies. The need for and existence of com-
m on markets give rise to regional,
continental, and global political integrations
whose aim is, am ong other things, to pre-
serve the bene® ts of globally oriented econ-
om ies. Economic and political integration
both dem and, and ultim ately lead to,
uni® cation and homogenisation of individ-
ual needs, lifestyles, languages, and cul-
tures. This uni® cation of different ways of
life leads in turn to the universalisation of
social problems that are now for the ® rst
time perceived as problems that are com-
m on to the entire human race, such as eco-
logical disasters, hum an rights, gender
equality, and so on. All these issues and
ISSN 0961± 4524 print/ISSN 1364± 9213 online 050579± 44
Carfax Publishing
problem s certainly do in¯ uence all of us. In
this sense, there is really no escape from
globalisation.
However, what I would like to concen-
trate on here is not the process of globalisa-
tion as such, which certainly affects us all,
but rather the ideology that stands behind
this processÐ globalism. The actual and
highly irreversible process of globalisation
is often indistinguishable from the ideology
of globalism . W hile the globalisation itself
is a historical, cultural, and political arte-
factÐ a structural force that one can like or
dislike but can hardly in¯ uence
signi® cantlyÐ globalism is an ideology, a
set of ideas, values, and principles promoted
by a particular group of people. Like any
other ideology, it seeks to establish its ow n
hegemony and as such can be analysed,
dissected and, if necessary, opposed. Unlike
globalisation, which is a historical process,
globalism (just like nationalism or social-
ism) is a normative ideal of how our (world)
society should be organised.
W e are faced with the two dom inant ide-
ologies in the contemporary worldÐ global-
ism and nationalism in all their forms. W hat
I would like to do here is to sketch the m ain
features of these ideologies and to single out
their potentially positive and negative char-
acteristics, using examples from Eastern Eu-
rope where the struggle between the two
ideologies is most apparent.
Globalism and nationalism are usually
though t of as being opposing and mutually
exclusive ideologies. Globalism is generally
seen as integrative, liberating, and progress-
ive, whereas nationalism is widely viewed
as regressive, disintegrative, oppressive, and
a relic of the past. In other words, globalism
is good while nationalism is bad. I shall
Ó 1999 Oxfam GB 579
 SinisÏa MalesÏevicÏ
argue that these two ideologies show m ore
similarities than differences when their
structure and content is analysed. For not
only are the two ideologies deeply related
and often com plem entary, but they also
share the sam e aim, which is to explain and
interpret the nature of social reality in which
we all live. By presenting their interpret-
ation of that reality, they both equally aim to
m onopolise their knowledge about it. In
other words, just as all ideologies do, they
seek to establish their hegem ony by present-
ing them selves as the only right way to look
at social reality. Both of these ideologies are
Downloaded by [University College Dublin] at 07:18 01 April 2015
m odern and are in fact a response to the
radical change that the process of globalisa-
tion has brough t upon us all. As ideologies,
they amalgamate positive and negative
features.
Globalism tells us that we are ® rst and
foremost individuals with our ow n personal
needs and liberties. Individu al freedom has
priority over authority, equality, and justice.
Globalism ® rmly believes in progress and
rationality, it proposes the removal of all
state borders and the free ¯ ow of goods,
services, and people. It strongly encourages
spatial mobility and cultural exchange as a
m eans of reducing stereotyping and preju-
dice. It stands against the idea of the nation-
state, and supports continental and other
global integrations. Globalism also has a
® rm trust in technology and sees technologi-
cal developm ent as being liberating for the
global individual. Technolog y makes our
lives easier by making us independent from
space and tim e.
Nationalism, on the other hand, tells us
that we are primarily mem bers of the par-
ticular group into which we were born,
whose culture we share and to whom we
thus have responsibilities. The loyalty to-
wards the culture of the particular group has
precedence over the wishes of its individual
m embers. The group, a nation, cherishes the
idea of equality among its mem bers where
the nation itself is perceived, as Anderson
(1983 ) calls it, as `deep horizontal comrade-
ship’ . How ever, the authority of the group
580 Development in Practice, Volume 9, Number 5, November 1999
does not rest only in each individual’ s duty
towards it, but also in his/her affection and
love for and from the group. Nationalism
promotes solidarity am ong the group’ s
m embers and their need to preserve their
cultural uniqueness. Nationalism believes
that the continuity of the individual lives
through the eternity of the group. In a
nationalist view, comm on mem ories, shared
ancestry, and fam ily ties m ake our life
uniqu e and m eaningful.
These two ideologies do oppose each
other, but they are also com plem entary.
First, they are both reactions to the process
of globalisation: globalism hails this pro-
cess, whereas nationalism uses its means
(i.e. technology) to condemn it strongly. 1
Second, to have any in¯ uence on the general
public, they are dependent on each other.
W ithout globalist-integrationist ideas there
cannot be a retreat into nationalism, and
vice versa. Third, and most im portant, the
two ideologies share the sam e form if not
content: whereas globalism supports the
right to be different at the individual level,
nationalism defends this right at the level of
the group. Globalism supports individualisa-
tion within the (world) society (every indi-
vidual has the right to be different), but
opposes individualisation outside society
(the existence of nation-states). Nationalism
supports individualisation outside society
(the existence of nation-states), but it sup-
presses individualisation within society (the
nation is more im portant than the individ-
ual).
Globalism argues convincingly that tech-
nological developm ents in ® elds such as
transport and inform ation have brough t
about greater liberation for individuals and
societies who can now travel longer dis-
tances rapidly and receive information more
quickly from all over the world, from differ-
ent sources, and can thus more directly see
and understand the problem s that people
face in various parts of the globe. In the era
of information technology, one cannot have
a total control over the mass m edia. W hile
in the 1950s, Soviet and other East Eu-

ropean establishments could easily jam the
signals of Radio Free Europe if they so
wished, in the late 1980 s it was im possible
and senseless to forbid hundreds of thou-
sands of satellite and cable dishes and other
transmitters that were receiving news and
program mes from the W est. The attractions
of consum erism Ð Levi’ s, Pepsi, and Holly-
wood ® lm sÐ were another globalist element
that underm ined and ® nally brought down
the ascetic com munist ideology . The ap-
pearance of the Internet creates even m ore
dif® culties for authoritarian regim es world-
wide. The proliferation of inform ation has
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also given us more freedom of choice in
organising our ow n lives. Because of
globalisation, we may now eat Japanese or
M exican food in Prague, wear Italian or
French clothes in W arsaw, or watch an
Am erican ® lm in So® a.
How ever, the response of nationalism to
this change also has its merits. By liberating
us as individuals, globalisation also cuts
away our roots, m aking us all alike. As soon
as our cities becom e globalised, they also
becom e very sim ilar if not the same. The
m agic of difference and unpredictability dis-
appears when we know that we will ® nd
Chinatown, M arks and Spencer, and Cine-
plex just as easily in Londo n and Paris as in
New YorkÐ and tom orrow perhaps in
globalised Tirana.
Nationalism attacksÐ with every rightÐ
the uniform standardisation of human needs
and forms of expression. W eber’ s (1948)
well-know n `iron cage’ truly becom es re-
ality with globalisation. Instrum ental ratio-
nalism and the worship of the consumerist
values of globalisation lead to routinisation
and eventually to disenchantm ent. In a M c-
Donaldised (Ritzer 1993) world of m ass
and globalised society, human activities as
well as needs become standardised, mechan-
ical, identical and thus m eaningless. The
cold, precise, and punctual rationalisation
turns us all into icy machines, whereas con-
sumerism makes us lazy and super® cial sen-
sation-seekers. As Baum an (1998:83 ) puts
it:
Development in Practice, Volume 9, Number 5, November 1999
Globalism and nationalism
[n]ot so much the greed to acquire and
possess, not the gathering of w ealth in
its material, tangible sense, as the ex-
citement of a new and unprecedented
sensation is the name of the consumer
game. Consumers are ® rst and fore-
most gatherers of sensations.
Nationalist ideology defends our right to
collective difference. It seeks to provide us
with the meanings, souls, and positive emo-
tions of solidarity, affection, and love.
Group m embership is a precondition for
solidarity. However, too much affection to-
wards group mem bers very often leads to
animosity and hostility towards those who
do not belong to it.
And this is the crucial problem of
nationalist ideology. Inclusiveness and love
for `us’ often turn into exclusion and hatred
of `them ’ . The protection and preservation
of `our way of life’ often lead to autarky,
populism, and uncritical evaluation of
everything which is `ours’ as glorious and
divine. The collective worship of the nation,
especially in its ethnic form , can m ake us
distrustful of other cultures and societies, of
anything that differs from our tradition. This
can lead us to racism, ethnic hostility and, in
its m ore radical form, can m ake us accom -
plices to genocide. Loyalty towards their
ethnic nation has led the peoples of form er
Yugoslavia to remain silent when their next-
door neighbours were taken into exile, eth-
nically `cleansed’ , raped, or killed.
The interdependence of globalism and
nationalism is perhaps most clearly visible
in the post-com m unist societies of Eastern
Europe. The new Eastern European regimes
legitimise their right to rule through the
ideology of nationalism . The message is that
for the ® rst tim e in `our’ history, `our peo-
ple’ rule `our’ country. Some of the regimes
in these societies see the ideology of global-
ism (represented in actors such as the EU
and the USA ) as a direct threat to their rule.
For that reason they interpret the ideology
of globalism as a nothing more than W est-
ern world hegemony. It is claim ed that
581
 SinisÏa MalesÏevicÏ
although technologically and econom ically
superior, the W est is egotistic, soulless, per-
verted, and thus morally inferior. However,
as a response to the world hegemony of
W estern globalism , nationalism has been
used to create an internal hegemony in these
societies. Hence, all globalist ideas are op-
posed as being foreign, im perialist, and `not
ours’ , while at the sam e tim e a sim ilar if not
greater level of ideological m onopoli sation
has been achieved. W ho can know what the
authentic values of `our society’ are? Of
course, it is the regim e alone that knows how
to articulate these values properly. In practi-
Downloaded by [University College Dublin] at 07:18 01 April 2015
cal term s, nationalist policies bene® t only the
rulers and even then only for a very short
time. Nationalism leads to isolation in a
globalising world where isolation, autarky,
and localism mean perm anent dependence,
economic backwardness and, in the long run,
certain annihilation.
At the same time, the promoters of the
ideology of globalism in the W est have been
given an excellent argum ent against the auth-
oritarian nationalistic autarkies of the East.
The message is sim ple: If `we’ do not accept
the values and ideas of globalism, we will
end up in similarly nationalistic, authori-
tarian, and backward societies. In this way,
the ideologues of globalism gain popular
support at hom e. How ever, the major prob-
lem with globalism is its intentional or unin-
tentional blindness towards the stratifying
nature of globalisation itself. W hat is cur-
rently happening is, as Bauman (1998:3 )
rightly points out:
[a] breakdown in communication be-
tw een extraterritorial elites and the
ever more `localised’ rest. The centres
of meaning-a nd-value production are
today exterritorial and emancipated
from local constraintsÐ this does not
apply, though , to the huma n condition
w hich such values and meanings are to
inform and make sense of.
M obility has become a central stratifying
elem ent, and to be local in a globalised world
m eans to be disadvantaged and degraded.
582 Development in Practice, Volume 9, Number 5, November 1999
The new situation that Bauman (1998) calls
`absentee landlordship’ is producing new
global elites that are for the ® rst tim e inde-
pendent from economic, political, and cul-
tural constraints, whereas the m ajority of the
world population is still largely immobile
and con® ned to the place or country of birth.
In other words, the truly globalised are the
few, while the rest are stretched between
of® cially promoted globalist ideals and ev-
eryday nationalist reality.
To conclude, nationalism and globalism
are neither good nor bad per se. Each has
features and potentials of both. The ideas and
values of globalism can help us more
ef® ciently and rationally to deal with the
enormous changes that are happening in the
world. Globalism rightly em phasises the ad-
vantages that new technologies bring us and
how we can use them to transcend tim e and
space in developing our own individual po-
tentials. It also prom otes the ideas that help
us to leave the prejudices, collective pres-
sures, and conformity of closed com muni-
ties, traditionalism , and patriarchy behind us.
Nationalism for its part also rem inds us that
we are ® rst of all emotional beings who need
to belong to a particular group, to love and
be loved, and to share rituals and patterns of
an individual culture. It is the irrationality
and deviation from the routine and rationally
constructed plans and programmes that pro-
duce creativity and change, and give m ean-
ings to our lives. Nationalism and globalism
are very much two sides of the sam e coin,
and in a globalising world we need the
constant presence of both to avoid the hege-
m ony of either.
Note
1 As Guibernau (1996:13 7) points out, Is-
lam ic fundam entalism , for example, has
many features of nationalist ideology,
and presents itself as a radical alterna-
tive to W estern ideologies, `but at the
sam e tim e it takes advantage of W estern
technolog y to reproduce and expand its
message’ to one billion potential
Internet users worldwide.

References
Anderson, B. (1983) Imagined Communi-
ties: Re¯ ections on the Origin and Spread of
Nationalism, London : Verso.
Bau m an , Z. (1998) Globalisation: The Hu-
man Consequences, Cam bridge: Polity
Press.
G uibernau, M . (1996) Nationalisms: The
Nation-state and Nationalism in the Twenti-
eth Century, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Ritzer, G. (1993) The M cDonaldization of
Society: An Investigation into the Changi ng
Character of Contemporary Social Life,
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Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press.
W eber, M . (1948) From M ax W eber:
Essays in Sociology, London : Routledge.
The author
SinisÏa MalesÏ evicÂis a Lecturer in the Depart-
m ent of Political Science and Sociology at
University College in Galway, where he
coordinates the Econom ic and Cultural
Studies Programm e. He was previously Re-
search Fellow at the Institute for Develop-
m ent and International Relations in Zagreb
and at the Centre for the Study of National-
ism of the Central European University in
Prague. Contact details: St. Angela’ s Col-
lege, Lough Gill, Sligo, Republic of Ireland.
Fax: 353 (71) 44581 ; E-m ail:
, sinisa@indigo.ie . .
Are universal social standards
possible?
Julius K. Nyerere
I value the opportunity to share with you m y
ow n personal views about some of the is-
sues which working for `sustainable devel-
opment’ can raise. I say `personal views’
Development in Practice, Volume 9, Number 5, November 1999
Are universal social standards possible?
because, although I was invited as Chairman
of the South Centre, I am not speaking as a
representative of its m ember governments. I
speak merely as an individual with some
experience of the problems of developing
countries.
The title on which I was asked to speak is
`Are universal social standards possible?’
My answer is de® nitely NO! Universal so-
cial principles are possible; but universal
social standards based on those principles
are not. There are som ething like 190 separ-
ate nation-states in the world; each of them
is different in physical geography and natu-
ral resources, in each the people are a
uniqu e mixture of history, of religious be-
liefs, of cultures, and of social structures.
Social groups have overlapping but still
varying value systems. And between and
within countries there are not only different
levels of wealth, there are even differences
in the way in which the people measure
their wealth.
W hen you have that kind of cultural and
resource diversity, on what basis is a `uni-
versal’ standard to be worked out, and who
is to decide on it? The assum ption is that
what we have in mind is the universalisation
of W estern concepts and standards. But
why? Those concepts and standards are
based on W estern history and Western cul-
ture, on high (and rapidly changing) tech-
nology , and on levels of personal and
comm unal consum ption which are not uni-
versal now and which the world’ s resources
cannot sustain on a global basis.
A person’ s `social income’ is very rel-
evant to his `standard of living’ Ð his `social
standards’ . Once a person’ s food and shelter
is assured through an adequate personally
disposable incom e, then things like health
provision, the availability of clean water,
access to education, and security in case of
sickness, unem ploym ent, or old ageÐ all
such things are involved in a person’ s `stan-
dard of living’ because they are important to
his or her wellbeing and future prospects.
Certainly, every social unit (however small
or backward) m akes som e provision for
583