Literature review on nationalism causing global insecurity

LITERATURE REVIEW ON NATIONALISM CAUSING GLOBAL INSECURITY Name: Grade Course: Tutor’s Name: (10 February 2011) Literature review on nationalism causing global insecurity Introduction The literature review chapter is an in depth examination of the concept of global insecurity in relation to nationalism. Historically, man has lived and evolved coming to form regional boundaries forming sovereign nation. With this came the issue of nationalism which has been deemed of strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms. Often, it is the belief that an ethnic group has a right to statehood or that citizenship in a state should be limited to one ethnic group, or that multi-nationality in a single state should necessarily comprise the right to express and exercise national identity even by minorities (Grenfell & Warren, 2008). It also includes the belief that the state is of primary importance, one state is naturally superior to all other states. It is also used to describe a movement to establish or protect a homeland for an ethnic group. In some cases the identification of a national culture is combined with a negative view of other races or cultures. With this, security problem usually occurs and in the recent past has proved to be a global concern. With globalization which has seen to it that the world has turned into a global villages characterized with free movement of goods, services, labor and capital the perceived reality brought about by the concept has made countries in dilemma. There are instances where some countries have resorted to nationalism as defensive mechanisms to counter effects of globalization. This has created misunderstanding that threatens the global security being enjoyed. The article titled “Global Insecurities and Nationalism in Advanced Industrialized Societies: Evidence from Japan and the United States” by Tsatsanis, E published in 2009 guide the development of the paper. Author’s main points and definition of global insecurity According to Tsatsanis, 2009, there is no clear definition of global insecurity. However, in trying to define it, there are a number of attributes that are factored in and these include; environmental, political, economic and social uncertainty that the world might face in the near future as a result of nationalism. All the four mentioned factors when negatively influenced, then mankind will encounter a myriad of problems making his life miserable and unbearable least something is done to reverse the situation. It is held that globalization has seen to it that the world has entered a new phase characterized by proliferation and acceleration of economic, political social, cultural as well as human find their way across national borders. This has brought mixed reaction where in one side there are those who believe the whole thing undermine sovereignty of nations leading to numerous ideological effects that are far reaching. On the other hand, globalization is seen as resulting to giving a boost to of nationalist politics as a counter-measure to the destabilizing effects as a result of rapid change. It is thus no doubt that globalization has made societies especially from large economies to enjoy the benefits and at the same time absorb its effects. Here, it is agreed that nationalism has made various scholars to define it in numerous ways usually on the ground of the topic under discussion. However, the term refers to ideology that came to light in 18th century in Europe including philosophies of irredentist, extreme right-wings, regionalist political parties, romanticism, government policies with regard to education, trade, international relation among others. Other concepts associated with nationalism include jingoism, racism, militarism, ethnocentrism, authoritarianism to mention but a few are credited for promoting nationalism. Nationalism is in most cases associated with negative attributes such as intolerance, irrationally, aggressiveness and extremism. However, as suggested by Grenfell & Warren, 2008 there are instance of pride as well as loyalty in it this has been thought of as patriotism. Thus the distinction between the two is not only on the positivity and negativity although there is a high correlation between them. According to social identity as well as self categorization theories people group themselves and allot an identity. This results to differences in groups and out-groups where positive attributes are applicable in the whole in-group while negative characteristics are passed to out-group. Categorizations of people into groups that are arbitrary propel the mental change s that results to positive in-group characteristic and negative out-group characteristics. Nationalism joins psychological action of such human grouping with emotionally effective narratives concerning ethno culturally different communities but have some issues such as common ancestry, boundary among others. Nationalism is credited for stressing naturalness as well as inevitability of world divisions into nation states (banal nationalism). Thus an ingredient for a more deep social categorization usually linked with positive, strong emotional attachment to the group, stronger sense of belonging and valorization of nations. For this reason, nationalism should be seen as a broadly shared world wide dominant ideology. The various degree of nationalism from highest identification to lowest is holistic nationalism, affective-symbolic nationalism, banal nationalism, and anti/post nationalism. Currently, nationalism is almost certainly the most prevalent ideology in politics across world. Nationalism threats to global security According to Skitka, 2005 there are several ways in which nationalism pose a threat to global security. One notable way is through economic polices to help countries positively balance their balance of payment by discouraging imports while encouraging export. This kind of phenomenon leads to a case known as protectionism. In most cases, the resultant of application of protectionism include massive loss of jobs, tremendous decline of trade all these translates to rise in aggression, intolerance of out-groups. Internal conflict also hinders exports making the situation even worse. In the extreme end, such internal conflict might escalate into other nations ruining the entire economic, political and social security of individuals. It is important to note that protectionist which is a fruit of nationalism may end up threatening the emerging global rules. The ultimate problem that might face human race is financial crisis/financial depression. Additionally, on the other side of the coin, countries or nations that seem to share same ideologies come together forming integrated global financial blocs. This has the ability to create global market risks; examples to support this include events in Asia market crisis that led to global aftershocks eluding the control of national governments. Through nationalism nations espec...