FOREIGN POLICY REORIENTATION FROM GLOBALIZATION TO NATIONALISM

Abstract

This dissertation explores the foreign policy implications of the post-2010 resurgence of nationalism in the U.S., Europe, and other parts of the world. It explores the reorientation of foreign policy away from globalization and the post-Cold War expectations that include a rules-based order, the spread of democracy and human rights, and the free movement of capital, products, people, and information. Instead, the emerging nationalist foreign policies emphasize independence and national sovereignty, economic self-sufficiency and protectionism, and antidemocracy and universal values. These policies are also characterized in terms of limited and unilateral engagement and proneness to conflict and confrontation. This dissertation characterizes this reorientation as a domestic-driven deviation that was triggered by systemic shocks including terrorist attacks, military interventions, regional conflicts and uprisings, and global and regional economic crises. Domestically, this reorientation was driven by domestic pressure that manifested in terms of increasing public and elite criticism of globalization and its foreign policy expressions. It was also driven by the rise of nationalist leaders who functioned as activating agents and a vehicle through which systemic shocks and domestic pressure have factored into the reorientation of foreign policy towards nationalism. This dissertation explores the reorientation of foreign policy toward nationalism across political systems including a presidential system (The United States of America), a parliamentary democracy (The United Kingdom), and a single-party authoritarianism (The People’s Republic of China).