Turmoil now convulses political systems throughout the West. While Donald Trump, Brexit, and various populist movements across Europe are different phenomena with distinct lineages, the current insurgencies against the status quo often stress loyalty to place and call for national self-determination. It would be a mistake to discount the many genuine benefits of the post-1989 trend toward “globalization” (such as the accompanying decline in poverty in many developing countries). The current form of globalization may, however, have reached a point of diminishing returns: Economic growth has slowed in many industrialized nations, the weakening of national borders has increased the threat of international terrorism, and restive populaces seem increasingly skeptical of global integration. When even Larry Summers, the former U.S. Treasury secretary and doyen of “neoliberalism,” is calling for a “responsible nationalism,” reforms are clearly needed.
Globalization has also often relied on an alliance between technocratic transnationalism and identity politics, which, at their core, are at odds with the hope of republican self-governance. In the present moment of disruption, it is therefore worth reflecting on the limits of transnationalism and identity politics and thinking about how to recover a sober-minded republicanism that honors human potential while acknowledging human limitation.
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