COUNTER CURRENT TO GLOBALIZATION: RISE OF RIGHT-WING POPULISM IN THE GLOBAL NORTH

The overarching global structure of capitalism was hit by the global financial crisis in 2008. The resulted shock wave was felt by the economies, connected to the global economic architecture. In particular, the Global North experienced the worst facet of it, with the ‘burst of the bubble’. Plummeting stock market, job cuts, sharp decrease in consumption and production rate, shutting down of businesses, collapsing of large banks instigated a global panic as the global economy took further downturn. While large financial institutions were bailed out by the tax payer’s money, a significant part of the middle class and lower class took the worst of the blow. Social strife and resentment against the establishment or the elite was visible worldwide, particularly in the northern hemisphere. This has led to a number of developments across the globe. The increasing popular sentiments against allowing Syrian refugees in the Western countries, the spread of the global terrorism, the shock of Brexit signalling the possible weakening of the European Union (EU), or the rise of Donald 

A.S.M. Tarek Hassan Semul is Research Officer at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic

Studies (BIISS). His e-mail address is: tarek@biiss.org
© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2018.  

Trump to the Oval Office baffled academics across different disciplines of social sciences. They struggled either to prove or disprove the presence of underlying factors in order to conceptualize the events either as separate or interconnected phenomena. In this backdrop, the rise of right-wing populism threatens to undermine the liberal norms and values that the Western democracies have preached over the years. The article limits its discussion to the Western societies. Limiting the discussion to the Global North would be interesting for two reasons. Firstly, it will provide a narrower geographical focus to a highly complex problem which requires a rigorous scrutiny. Secondly, the dichotomous scenario of the Global North, on the one hand, being the propagator of liberal values such as regionalism, soft state boundaries instead of hard borders and so forth. On the other hand, growing strong nationalistic and chauvinistic attitudes against the immigrants, refugees or supranational regional organization like the EU make it a paradoxical problem to comprehend and explain.

In this backdrop, the paper intends to investigate the potential causal explanation or underlying factor(s) behind the pan-Northern rise of the populist right in relation to globalization. In order to do that, the definitional complexities surrounding the term ‘populism’ demands the following section to address the definition of the term from three different approaches whereas ‘populism vis-à-vis globalization debate’ will be discussed from three different levels to determine the point of departure for this paper. Finally, this paper will widen its focus to answer whether the rise of far right in the northern hemisphere triggers a rollback for the globalization process. Following this introduction, the second section tries to conceptualize the notion of populism and globalization in order to operationalize both the ideas in relation to the main research question of the paper. The third section tackles the main thesis of the paper: the rise of right-wing populism as a consequence of and reaction to globalization, which was regarded by some societies as invasive antithetical to national development. In order to explain the argument, the paper employs its analysis from three separate levels, i.e., individual, state or national and structural or global. The fourth section analyses the potential impacts of the trend of populism, such as further cultural confrontation as predicted by Samuel P. Huntington, diminishing support for human rights by the Western countries as they turn more inwards. The final section draws conclusions based on the discussion.

Right-wing populist political movements and parties persistently attracted support in the twentieth century. During the interwar period, the continental Europe worked as a breeding ground for fascist ideologies. Leading up to the World War II, ultra nationalism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia were used by authoritarian regimes and democratic governments alike to shore up popular support. Nazism and fascism were employed both as an ideological driving force for the war and strategies to secure legitimacy and resources for the war. Therefore, during this period, the rise of  the far right often overlaps between populism as an ideology and a strategy.1 This conceptual ambiguity renders this concept with definitional complexity which often comes from the composition of the concept as it combines parties, movements and leaders of diverse or even opposite ideological backgrounds and orientations. Since the 1960s, populism started to resurface and being increasingly analyzed as an ideology, a forma mentis, a movement, a syndrome rather than a doctrine, or a social identity due to its “chameleonic” nature grafted with “essential impalpability” and “conceptual slipperiness.”2 Despite this ‘slipperiness’, populism is both widely used and widely contested concept as it has been defined based on political, economic, social and discursive features and analyzed from myriad theoretical perspectives —including structuralism, post-structuralism, modernization theory, social movement theory, party politics, political psychology, political economy and democratic theory.3 One of the challenges to define populism is that the term has been used by academics to describe political movements, parties, ideologies, and leaders across geographical, historical and ideological contexts. However, there is a general consensus among the researchers in the comparative literature that populism is “confrontational, chameleonic, culturebound and context-dependent”; the challenge, then, is to understand how culture and context shape populist politics and how populism in turn affects political change. 

To deal with this definitional ambiguity and complexities, the term ‘populism’ can be discussed from three distinct perspectives, first, from the ideological viewpoint, second, as a discursive style and finally, as a political strategy or as a form of political mobilization. First, from the ideological point of view, populism can be understood as a political doctrine or ideology that “... considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people.”4 The second perspective to populism entails that populism is a discursive style. The dichotomy between the ‘us’ (the people) and ‘them’ (the corrupt elite) are in the centre of this populist discursive style. This argument finds its vindication in the case of Latin American populism where it can be defined as a “rhetoric that constructs politics as the moral and ethical struggle between el pueblo (the people) and the oligarchy.”5 On the other hand, from the strategic perspective, populism is conceived as a ‘political strategy’ where it is said that populism is used as a strategy by the opposition politicians and business class, who claim themselves as anti-establishment, but in reality they are trying to achieve the same place of the established elites by superseding the previous one. This ‘strategic populism’ is only 

1

 Kirk Hawkins, “Populism in Venezuela: The Rise of Chavismo”, Third World Quarterly, Vol. 24, No. 6, 2003, pp.
1137-1160.
2
 Paul Taggart, Populism, Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000, p. 1. 3
 Margaret Canovan, “Taking Politics to the People: Populism as the Ideology of Democracy”, in Meny Yves
and Yves Surel (eds.), Democracies and the Populist Challenge, New York: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 25-44. 4
 Cas Mudde, “The Populist Zeitgeist”, Government and Opposition, Vol. 39, No. 4, 2004, pp. 542-563. 5
 Carlos de la Torre, Populist Seduction in Latin America: The Ecuadorian Experience, Athens: Ohio University
Press, 2000, p. 4.  

a demagogy of these opponent elites which merely appearing to empathize with the public sentiment through using the racist rhetoric approach in order to uphold their own personal interests of gaining the same wealth, privileges and influences of the present established elites. Therefore, populism as an ideology and as a political strategy does not go together and it can also be of any type: rightist, leftist or centrist. In this connection, since right-wing populism has been prevalent in Europe and this paper’s geographical focus is largely Europe; hence, right-wing populism will be analyzed as a point of discussion.

To decipher the relation with globalization process, academics often termed populism as the “protest vehicle of losers” of the modernization process. This process has taken its root in Europe since the age of enlightenment and got moulded into its current shape following the triumph of liberalism in the aftermath of the Cold War. The post 1990s globalization process swept the states with liberal norms, democratic values and integration of markets. However, following the last financial recession of 2008, populism emerged as a reaction and discontent to denationalization, economic and cultural liberalism, the ideology of the modern internationalized professional elites and the universalistic, cosmopolitan global village without boundaries and distinctions. Hence, for many scholars populism is an anti-globalization movement.6 On the other side of the spectrum, globalization has not disappointed everyone, as it has provided numerous benefits and created winners as well. However, a significant proportion of the voting populace perceives it as a risk which threatens to destroy their culture, livelihood and liberty. Therefore, recent populism can be interpreted as discontent with the power structure that appears to preserve and ensconce prevailing class structures. Such social inequalities can create frustration with those who bought into the modernization project to deliver upward social mobility and material advancement that was promised by globalization. 

Predominantly, these disappointments have grown in prominence within welfare societies of the northern hemisphere as liberal politics in the West has taken a back seat. Along with that, Left alternatives and their voices against social injustices and inequalities have been sidelined due to the resonating failures with past communist projects. Consequently, populism often treated as an expression which is intertwined with identity politics and develop exclusionary and marginalizing features. For example, the understanding of the ‘people’ is constructed against potential exploiters and oppressors. Such constructions always make use of a pool of symbolic resources that are ‘culturally specific’. It can be based on nationalist sentiment, ethnic solidarity or 

6

 A. Mughan, C. Bean and I. McAllister, “Economic Globalization, Job Insecurity and the Populist Reaction”,
Electoral Studies, Vol. 22, No. 4, 2003, pp. 617–633; D. Swank and Hans-Georg Betz, “Globalization, the
Welfare State and Right-Wing Populism in Western Europe”, Socio-Economic Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, 2003, pp.
215-245; A. Zaslove, “Exclusion, Community, and a Populist Political Economy: The Radical Right as an AntiGlobalization Movement”, Comparative European Politics, Vol. 6, No. 2, 2008, pp. 169-189.

religious identity, or different combinations of these.7 Therefore, right-wing populism promises to restore security through harsh immigration and trade legislation, undermining the power of supranational authorities or international actors such as the EU, the United Nations (UN) and diverting resources on natives rather than foreigners. It preaches a cultural, economic, political and social demarcation of the nation. Consequently, this politics of the demarcation work as a welcome change for risk-averse citizens who often find little assurance in the globalizing world, including the influx of immigrants and political control from supranational authorities. Hence, Euroscepticism and anti-immigrant resentment are among the factors which are closely tied with globalization and the resurgence of populist parties in the Global North. Although this notion does not go for the whole populace, but there is a sympathetic audience for populist causes in many countries those who feel let down by globalization process. 

Existing literature on populism is heavily concentrated at levels of analysis when it comes to right-wing populism and there is an intrinsic linkage among these three levels (macro or structural, state or national and micro or individual) as it can often be overlapping and complimentary in nature. The first level, which is a macro or structural level, tries to decipher the rise of right-wing populism from the systemic level to look into the supranational phenomena or factors that facilitate the emergence of populism at the national level. For example, globalization tends to make many hitherto well-off social classes (e.g., workers or members of the traditional middle class) into economic losers. Coupled with modernity, it also influences social norms and values (e.g., the rise of cultural diversity and secularism) and pose serious questions regarding how those sectors used to arrange and their lives. Hence, the economic losers with strong traditional and conservative values become a strong support base for the radical populist parties. These Radical Right Populists (RRPs) can dwell either on the right (with a special leaning towards immigration and family values) or on the left (with a strong emphasis on inequality and, hence, the need of economic redistribution of wealth). This individual (voter/citizen) level disgruntlement has severe repercussions at the national level as repeated economic meltdown and the worsening of economic disparity has turned voters against mainstream parties for their inability to implement the necessary economic reforms and contain the crisis. Therefore, these conditions provide fertile ground for populist movements to emerge and flourish.8 However, at the micro or individual level of analysis when it comes to the individual citizen, often their sense of vulnerability, deprivation and negative sociotropic perceptions compliment ultra-nationalistic manifestos of the populist leaders as they feed on each other to strengthen populist attitude at the individual level. 

7

 Benedict Anderson,“Afterword”, in Kosuke Mizuno and Pasuk Phongpaichit (eds.), Populism in Asia,
Singapore: NUS Press in association with Kyoto University Press, 2009, pp. 217-220.
8
 K. A. Hawkins, “Is Chavez Populist?: Measuring Populist Discourse in Comparative Perspective”, Comparative
Political Studies, Vol. 42, No. 8, 2009, pp. 1040-1067. 

e media) and the voters should be the focus of the study. The mechanisms employed by the leaders for example, symbolic framing of an issue, creating polarization to make alliance with a particular group or to reach out to the voters to convey their populist messages are important to study.9 A significant portion of analytical research focuses on populist discourse as it considers; the populist language used by the politicians as a strong trigger that instigate nascent attitudes among the voters, such as, for example, the perceived threat to dilute the purity of the community. Hence, a significant portion of analytical research at this level focuses on populist discourse and it maintains that the use of populist language by politicians and political parties is a powerful trigger that activates embryonic attitudes among voters, such as the perceived normative threat to the community. 

Nevertheless, this paper intends to analyze all of the three levels as units of analysis, which focuses on complex manifestations related to complex and crisscrossed phenomena such as, the trajectory of the globalization process vis-àvis rising antagonism against denationalization and the rise of postmodern values vis-à-vis ‘multicultural discontent’. Hence, the paper tries to investigate whether the globalization process possesses any intended or incidental disrupting force that converted well-off segments of the society (e.g. traditional middle class or working class) into economic losers. Another populist argument against globalization presumes that, it has replaced the pre-existed social value system with postmodern norms such as, cultural diversity and secularism and hence, posing threats to the traditional lifestyle and core values of those segments of the society. Therefore, making it possible for the populist parties to reach out to the economic losers with strong traditional norms. In order to comprehend the relation between the rise of the far right and forces of globalization, the following section will employ three different levels of analysis and discuss the possible triggering factor(s) or causal mechanism(s).

llapse of the Soviet Union signalled a unipolar world order making the US as the leader of the ‘free world’ and the EU as the ‘normative leader’. Democratic norms, liberal values, neo-liberal market originating from the Western democracies, started to shape the progression of the human civilization. However, globalization process received invigorated academic attention since early 1990s as the vehicle for the Western values and norms that were coming to the Global South. The economic backlash of the globalization process was first felt during the 1990s by the Asian financial crisis. However, Western societies for the first time, felt the ripple effect only 9 

T. S. Pappas, “Political Leadership and the Emergence of Radical Mass Movements in Democracy”,

Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 41, No. 8, 2008, pp. 1117-1140. 

after the global recession of 2008. The emergence of right-wing populism started to be seen as the anti-globalization movement.10 The European sovereign debt crisis in spring 2010 and the failure of the Greek economy have been marked as the tipping point in the trans-European backlash against globalization.11 To understand the impact of these backlashes and how populism got used both ideologically and as a strategy, focusing on individual or micro level is an imperative. 

Following the traumatic World War II, Europe and the US have gone through a cultural overhaul to exorcise the ghost of the Holocaust and the question of antiSemitism. This post war period can be marked as a period of intellectual reform where cultural discourses were sanctified by ‘political correctness’ to include ‘multiculturalism’ and ‘immigrants’ were welcomed for the reconstruction of post-conflict societies (Europe in particular).  

10 A. Mughan, C. Bean and I. McAllister, op. cit.

11 M. Berezin, “Sovereign Debt and Nationalism: Normalizing the European Right”, States, Power and Societies:
Newsletter of the Political Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2012, pp.
5-6.  

However, these welfare societies turned a blind eye to the de facto segregation and marginalisation of incoming new immigrants and the pressure they exerted on the welfare system. Cultural cleavages between liberalism and immigrants were ignored and established mainstream democratic forces undermined the rise of the extreme right, racist parties and their concerns. This negligence from the policy makers reflected in widespread discontent among the Europeans. This has been reflected in a survey conducted in 2017 which depicts a disappointing picture regarding EU in particular and globalization in general. This gloomy future for the EU is reflected in Figure 1 where approximately one in five EU citizens identified immigration as one of the two most severe problems that their countries faced in the year of 2017. While two out of five respondents feel the EU’s future is bleak and one out of five believe globalization does not provide any opportunity for growth. Hence, it was possible for the populist entities to successfully bring the dark sides of mass migration, complexities of integration and segregation, high unemployment and crime rates; ‘multicultural discontent’ into the forefront following the post 9/11 era. As these problems successfully instigated a populist-xenophobic reaction, there is a widespread criticism over the process of European integration. 

 As the flagship project of globalization, the EU was supposed to get all the acclaims. On the contrary, there has been discontent among the Europeans over uncertain and unintended impacts from the European enlargement as it seeks to extend the EU boundary to include post-Soviet states in East-Central Europe. As a result of this ill-managed enlargement and the recent Syrian refugee crisis, fear of losing social security is on the rise, not only in Europe but also in the US. As suggested in the previous section of the paper, populism can also be understood as an expression of revolt by ‘the people’ (referring to a homogeneous entity) against ‘a corrupt elite’. In the case of the Global North, this ‘revolt’ comes as a reaction of ‘betrayal’ by the ruling elite as ‘the people’ feel victimized by lack of representation on the issue of mass (post) modernization of their cultural identity and society. These individual grievances were against processes, such as post-industrialization, multiculturalization and Europeanization and thus brought tectonic changes in the northern political landscape.12 Massive economic transformation tied with the globalization and the advancement of new technologies does not have the same impacts on everybody. Hence, it rewards and redistributes opportunities only for able participants of the process. The level of training and education in particular, pre-determines the individuals’ life-chances, their competitiveness and survival chance in a globalized society. Therefore, as these welfare economies striving to construct an international knowledge based economy by the virtue of free global capital, the unskilled and lowskilled took the worst hit of the last financial debacle. In effect, this has created a social cleavage among the democratic electorate. Hence, the division between social liberal 

12 Tjitske Akkerman, “Populism and Democracy: Challenge or Pathology?”, Acta Politica, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2003,

pp. 147-159. 

academic professionals and traditional trade union-social democrats; the cleavage between higher educated and lower educated, the rift between cosmopolitan and nationalistic or libertarian and authoritarian orientations are getting ever so prominent.

This populist rift has been empirically proven in recent research on six European countries comparison, where the research demonstrated that, ‘the current process of globalization or denationalization leads to the formation of a new structural conflict in Western European countries, opposing those who benefit from this process against those who tend to lose in the course of events.13 Therefore, the research expects losers of globalization to support protectionist measures, based on the importance of national boundaries and sovereignty. On the other hand, winners who benefit from the increased competition, lean towards the opening up of the state boundaries and the international integration process. Hence, this emerging antagonism between winners and losers of globalization is termed as “the conflict between integration and demarcation.”14 The right-wing populist parties try to bring the spotlight on the risks of phenomena such as immigration and European integration. They offer reassurance in their messages against those threats and these populist campaigns’ target audience are risk-averse citizens who can easily be concerned regarding their individual fate in a globalizing world. 

In the aftermath of the end of Cold War, globalization of democracy and liberalism became such as obvious that, democracy established itself as the only acceptable form of government. By default, this globalized liberal surge made nondemocratic leaders, movements and parties universally redundant and unacceptable. To gain legitimacy, both within the national boundaries and beyond, political actors were compelled to achieve at best a semblance of democracy. One strategy to realign with this transformed reality was to adopt the language of populism since it has a clear democratic impetus. From this perspective, populism has a democratic thrust since it supposedly at odds with any type of independent and non-elected institution that puts limits on the will of the people. However, liberal democracy is a complex political organism that with the help of different institutions and procedures tries to find a difficult balance between respecting majority rule on the one hand and protecting fundamental rights such as the right to express one’s view freely and form political organizations, on the other.15 Hence, the growing resurgence of populism in the Global North can be traced back to growing distrust of the formal institutions 

13 Hanspeter Kriesi et al., “Globalization and the Transformation of the National Political Space: Six European

Countries Compared”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 45, No. 6, 2006, pp. 921-956. 14 Ibid.
15 Ariel C. Armony and Hector E. Schamis, “Babel in Democratization Studies”, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 16,
No. 4, 2005, pp. 113-128. 

that possess social, economic and political power within individual states. This has been manifested even in the established and matured liberal democracies of the Western world. Traditionally dominant political parties have been facing robust populist opposition, whether emanating externally or internally. Hence, this populist opposition has been successful to affect the sorts of ideas and agendas that become mainstream within the national political discourse. During the last presidential election in the US, such developments were evident. The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as presidential candidates against the will of the ‘establishment’ of their respective political parties – to which they are both relative outsiders. Such mainstreaming of outliers has been evident in Europe as well as in Australia, where the debate about immigration is infused with highly xenophobic ideologies that have been accepted ‘normal’, especially as they concern Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East. In this backdrop, national elections in the Global North make a compelling case for analysis to understand the relation between globalization process and the recent surge of populism in the West. 

Populism is not a recent phenomenon in the US politics as George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan often used populism to further their policy objectives. However, in the recent past it has shaped the Washington’s politics since the Obama administration. So much so that, it helped Donald J. Trump to take the Oval office. During his election campaign, Trump argued that the US has developed a decade long trend of negotiating ‘bad trade deals’ with other nations that have weakened the American economy and the American working class has suffered the ramification. Although he belongs to the American elite, Trump blamed this social class for using these trade deals to send American jobs overseas while maximising their own profit. His argument for this ‘unfair economic arrangement’ has championed Trump’s electoral campaign among the white Christian voters with less than a college degree as they see Trump’s speaking to their sense of economic injustice.16 Hence, Trump’s ascendancy often is being associated with “broad populist/nationalist backlash” against neoliberal globalization in advanced capitalist countries today.17 Established conservative and progressive parties, both in the continental Europe and in the US, who supported laissez faire economic liberalism for decades, are now facing challenges by the “populist, nativist/nationalist anti-establishment.”18 Donald Trump lauded the British voters’ decision to leave the EU as a victory of the people’s longing for national sovereignty and safe borders. Trump’s expression of sympathy towards 

16 Dan Balz and Scott Clement, “A new 50-state poll shows exactly why Clinton holds the advantage over

Trump.”, The Washington Post, 06 September 2016. 17 Nouriel Roubini, “Globalization’s Political Fault Lines”, Project Syndicate, 04 July 2016, available at https://
www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/globalization-political-fault-lines-by-nouriel-roubini-2016-
07?barrier=accesspaylog, accessed on 18 June 2018.
18 Ibid. 

the growing populist movement within Europe signals his own support for recent anti-globalization and nationalist awakening in Europe.

When it comes to foreign policy, Trump’s grand strategy indicates the starting of an unorthodox foreign policy in the Republican Party. Not only he discarded the bipartisan consensus in general and challenges the main emblems of post-Reaganite Republican policy, such as internationalism, pro-democracy promotion, pro-free trade and pro-immigration, among others. During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump indicated a clear shift from traditional and dominant multilateralism or globalism and tilting towards neo-isolationist and neo-sovereigntist countermeasures to ‘make America Great Again!’. As he said,  

“No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first. Both our friends and our enemies put their countries above ours and we, while being fair to them, must start doing the same. We will no longer surrender this country or its people to the false song of globalism. The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony… [U]nder my administration, we will never enter America into any agreement that reduces our ability to control our own affairs.”19

In terms of international economy, Trump has expressed his strong intent to create trend for bilateral negotiation replacing multilateralism as he mentioned North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NAFTA) as “one of the worst trade deals ever signed anywhere in the world.” He also stressed that, “If I don’t get a change, I would pull out of NAFTA in a split second.”20 Within one year of his election, he kept his promise. Trump’s nativist policy to build a “Fortress America,” or a large gated ethno-religious community in the US, mainly against Hispanics and Muslims. As he promised that he would deport eleven million illegal immigrants and build a security wall against Mexican immigrants around the southern border, he will make Mexico pay for the wall.21 Most of these undocumented immigrants are job holders (nearly 8 million22), with another large portion (mainly the Mexicans) is accused of being violent, having criminal behaviour and criminal records as gang members, drug dealers and rapists. And Trump’s far right nationalist and protectionist ideology mainly targeted this issue as Americans in one hand lost their jobs, their income, on the other hand are the main victims of the misdemeanour of these illegal immigrants. In his words, Americans had been killed by these undocumented immigrants who ready to prey   

19 “Transcript: Donald Trump’s Foreign Policy Speech”, The New York Times, 27 April 2016. 20 “Transcript: Donald Trump on NATO, Turkey’s Coup Attempt and the World”, The New York Times, 21 July

2016.
21 Max Boot, “Is a New Republican Foreign Policy Emerging?”, Real Clear Politics, 19 January 2016, available at
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2016/01/19/is_a_new_republican_foreign_policy_emerging_374100.
html, accessed on 19 June 2018.
22 Brian Bennett, “Not just ‘bad hombres’: Trump is targeting up to 8 million people for deportation”, Los
Angeles Times, 04 February 2017. 

on innocent Americans, adding that “they are hurting the economy, stealing jobs from struggling families, costing the government billions of dollars, and generally creating an environment of lawless chaos.” He further said that removing these gang members, drug dealers, and criminals (in his words hardened criminals) that threaten the American communities and prey on its citizens as a moral choice between protecting Americans or leaving them vulnerable to exploitation and death.23 The rise of populism in the US signals a clear shift into the unilateral neoliberal global order that was established in the post-Soviet era. Issues of human rights, normative values, democracy, regional cooperation or multilateralism all can come under question as right-wing populism increasingly polarising the US society. The very spirit upon which the US was built by its ‘forefathers’ is under threat as the immigrants have been demarcated as ‘them’. 

Since the beginning of this century, Europe has witnessed a substantial increase in the popularity of RRPs. In the recently held French election, France has witnessed for the first time the shattering of two big political parties (the Socialist and the Centre Right) which have been reigning since the 1950s. Although, the triumph of a centrist and pro EU leader, Emmanuel Macron over the far right and antiEU candidate, Marine Le Pen gave some breathing space to the liberals within the EU. However, the massive support that a RRP like the National Front gained in this election is remarkable. The anti-EU and anti-immigrant rhetoric that Ms. Le Pen used in her campaign, is a fair reflection of the resentment that exist within the French society against the forces of globalization. She doubled the support base than what her father was able to achieve, when he ran for the presidentship in 2002, cementing another RRP’s foothold in the French political spectrum. 

23 Linda Qiu, “Donald Trump’s top 10 campaign promises”, Politifact, 15 July 2016, available at http://www.

politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/jul/15/donald-trumps-top-10-campaign-promises/, accessed on
05 May 2017.  

It is also signifi cant that many nationalist right-wing parties in Europe have relatively long historical roots. The Austrian Freedom Party was founded in 1956 and the French National Front in 1972. Most of these parties with a substantial number of seats in parliament in 2016 emerged between the late 1980s and early 2000s. Figure 2 illustrates the trend in vote share for RRPs has increased over the last thirty years. This trend suggests up until 2017, RRPs have been able to build strong foothold, largely in the Eastern and Central Europe as well as the Scandinavian countries. On the other hand, the results of gains for right-wing parties in European national elections in 2016 demonstrate that populist parties are entering the centre of the European political landscape: Austria’s Freedom Party 35.1 per cent, Swiss People’s Party 29 per cent, Danish People’s Party 21 per cent, Hungary’s Jobbik 21 per cent, True Finns 18 per cent, France’s National Front 14 per cent, Sweden Democrats 13 per cent, The Netherlands Freedom Party 10 per cent, Greece’s Golden Dawn 7 per cent and Italy’s Northern League 4 per cent and Five Star Movement 21.15 per cent. In addition to populist parties at the national level, far right wing groups formed their own political party at the European level in June 2015. The Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), chaired by Marine Le Pen and Marcel de Graaff represents thirty-nine members from nine countries in the European Parliament.24 Some RRPs were even part of governments, e.g., the Austrian Freedom Party (2000–2005), or supported minority governments, e.g., the Danish People’s Party (2001-2011). Like the French case, using anti-immigrant and strong nationalist sentiment as the major selling point has been the case in almost all the European states, where RRPs made some grounds.25 From March, 2018 Italian national election, another populist party called ‘5 Star Movement’ emerged to form Italy’s new government. The onus on the political leadership of this party is to decide, whether Italy follows the footsteps of nationalists like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of the Poland’s Law and Justice party. Or, should Italy stand together with EU protectors like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The Italian case of Euroscepticism comes from failure of the country’s political leadership to adapt with the changed global scenarios due to globalization. Yet, over the last twenty years the EU has been the go to scapegoat for anything that is wrong with Italy by prime ministers from the right, Silvio Berlusconi and the left, Matteo Renzi. 

As “nationalism, anti-immigration and traditionalism go hand in hand” and created a diverse kind of strife in the society by the RRPs.26 The EU as the integration project gave a structured presence to the immigration and created political strife in Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria by setting up competition between the winners of the globalization process, who support the transnational integration against losers who seek demarcation.27 Consequently, two of the most significant groups (highly educated and socio-cultural specialists) on the winners' side have been supportive of relaxed borders, than those with lower levels of education and who are unskilled workers.28 Defence of national culture and sovereignty, anti-immigration sentiment reinforced by open labour market, are sensitive issues for those who feel they did not receive the benefits of globalization; as they are culturally insecure, unskilled or lack proper education to compete in an open global labour market. Followed by the global recession, Euro crisis was a major blow for the EU, coupled with the migration crisis transnational cleavages emerged across the northern hemisphere. These crises played a critical role to bring immigration into the public debate, increased the divisions within the mainstream political parties. Which in turn, led to the emergence of rejectionist right-wing political parties within the mainstream polity.29 

24 “Europe and nationalism: A country-by-country guide”, BBC News, 14 May 2017. 25 C. Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 26 L. Hooghe, G. Marks and C. J. Wilson, “Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?”,

Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 35, No. 8, 2002, p. 979. 27 Hanspeter Kriesi et al., op. cit.
28 Hanspeter Kriesi et al., Political Conflict in Western Europe, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 29 S. B. Hobolt and C. de Vries, “Turning Against the Union? The Impact of the Crisis on the Eurosceptic Vote
in the 2014 European Parliament Elections”, Electoral Studies, Vol. 44, 2016, pp. 504-514.

The discussion of structural level triggers requires an understanding on the evolution of the modern society in relation to globalization. Hence, modernity and globalization both are key variables in discourses on populism. The modernization and transformations of societies in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries took place in two separate phases as the societies transformed from agrarian to industrial following the industrial revolution in Europe. On the other hand, the second phase should have installed cosmopolitan values such as multiculturalism, environmental protection and gender equality. However, postmaterialist values such as these have not spread equally across societies, hence, leaving the modernization process incomplete.30 For example, a disparity is visible among the centres and peripheries. The centres enjoy all facets of modernization such as modern forms of living, environmental protection and multiculturalism. On the other hand, the increasing income inequality gap, the need for economic mobility and the diluting of borders between individuals, communities and nations hit regions with a low-qualified workforce more than booming centres. This offers populism with scapegoating and far right-wing parties are well prepared to gain the confidence of communities and societies that are left behind at the bottom of the ladder in the rapidly changing twenty-first century. 

The current liberal order has been the result of unprecedented democratization that took place in the post war period, especially after the end of the Cold War. During this same period, globalization and democratization not only coincided, but reinforced each other as part of modernization project. This democratization has been associated with rising living standards and attainment of the income distribution across societies. At the same time, however, there was a significant rise in the income inequality within the developed western societies and there is evidence to suggest that this rise in income inequality both in the US and Western Europe is intrinsically associated with the re-emergence of China as the global manufacturing powerhouse. Following the 2008 financial debacle, the “China shock” is more so a challenge to the liberal trading regime as trade and capital flight has been towards East rather than West. Globalization has created the opportunity for the businesses to find cheap labour and that has created trade diversion for the Global North. This particular form of modern globalization has diluted the national boundaries to build a common global market with the creation of outsourcing, the deepening and lengthening of global value chains. Hence, this has turned a particular segment of the middle class in the developed societies into ‘losers’. The political consequences of this hollowing out of the moderately (but not necessarily the lowest) skilled segment of the labour force lead not only to the rise of right-wing populism, but actually puts electoral accountability, and democracy at greater risk than ever before.31 

30 Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy, New York:

Cambridge University Press, 2005.
31 J. Bradford Jensen, Dennis P. Quinn and Stephen Weymouth, “Winners and Losers in International Trade:
The Effects on U.S. Presidential Voting”, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Working Paper No.
21899, 2016.  

The rise of populism might be shocking in the height of the globalization process where national boundaries seemed to get blurred due to globalized finance, labour, civil society and so forth. However, there is no denying that populism poses a complex set of challenges for the existing liberal global order. This decade could be marked as a watershed moment in the global history where populist parties started to take office and leaving everyone to guess at their intention once in government. Along with that, many of these parties are relatively fresh in politics, creating uncertainties regarding their values and priorities. On the other hand, it cannot be said with certainty that the growing influence of right-wing populism will hold forever since history suggests populist waves have surged during the interwar period and waned down following the World War II. As the French election result has shown, right-wing populism has faced strong opposition from liberal forces. In the US, the judiciary has overturned several of Trump’s advances to block immigration. With the firing of FBI Chief James Comey, who was responsible for overseeing an investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia before the election, and apparent power struggle within the President’s inner circle, the weakness of the administration has come to the forefront. Despite this, there are far-reaching implications of the rise of right-wing populism. The following discussion explores the potential for increased confrontations between cultures, diminishing values for human rights, stalled progress of regional integration and globalization, and economic implications in some societies.

Right-wing populism has highlighted several fault lines in Western societies, especially the cultural backlash, as manifested in the growing intolerance towards refugees and asylum seekers. This has brought to the forefront a highly contested and controversial theory proposed by Samuel P. Huntington. He posited that the Western and non-Western values are inherently irreconcilable and a clash was inevitable. The successive waves of populism in Europe and the US also rode in popular attitudes towards nonWestern values and immigrants. Trump’s rhetoric of erecting a wall across the US-Mexican border, banning refugees from certain countries is a manifestation of this intolerance. As this trend continues, it will make cross border movements of people much harder. There is also an opposite reaction from within the Western societies that host Muslim populations. The recent terrorist attacks in some European cities perpetrated by local terrorists support this assertion.

However, the most possible blow is likely to be on the ideas of liberalism and democracy. Since the end of two world wars, the Western nations have propagated and supported human rights, democratic movements and free trade across the world. Human rights have become an inviolable norm in global politics. As populism grows in power, this is likely to make states focus more inwards and allocate their resources for job creation  and national welfare, instead of democratic institution building elsewhere. Weak states in the Global South that depend on the flow of funds from the West will be affected by this.

Whether Brexit was a significant blow to the EU institutions is a separate debate, but these institutions are still dominated by mainstream parties from the centre-right and the centre- left. Although twenty five per cent of the members of the European Parliament belong to far right populist parties, but they are mostly marginalized and outliers in the decision-making process. However, the indirect effect is significant as the fear of the populist competitors’ prompts mainstream politicians to prioritize national interests and over Europe to adopt Eurosceptic stance. Consequently, it has weakened European solidarity and makes finding European solutions more difficult. The growing demand for referenda on EU matters can partially be attributed to the populist parties who use these referenda as perfect instruments for mobilizing support for their populist agendas. Recent experience with referenda in Greece, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK has demonstrated how difficult it is to win such referenda in the current political landscape. Therefore, fear of further defeats has crippled the EU’s ability to adopt significant reforms. 

However, history suggests dwindling role of state boundaries in Europe as a result of deeper regional integration is an epitome of human civilization’s political and social advancement. European countries that fought bloody wars with each other for most of their history has exhibited how economic integration can usher in prosperity and wellbeing of all countries concerned. The success of the EU has supplied with the necessary impetus for similar endeavours elsewhere in the world. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) — all took their cues from the examples set by the EU. But with integration came an increased flow of humans and transmission of cultures. Several European countries imposed strict measures or limited the spread of alien cultural values. France has moved to restrict Muslim veils. In some places in Hungary, Islamic call to prayer and Muslim immigration were banned. While Islam is not necessarily at the heart of the problem, but it has played a role in creating negative popular attitudes towards unfettered immigration. As a result, populist political parties that advocate sterner immigration laws and oppose unrestrained integration are receiving support. This trend has been evidenced by the popularity of Marine Le Pen in France before the country’s 

The relative decline of established global powers in a rapidly shifting global order creates uncertainties, tensions, fears and backlashes. With the election of populist Trump as the US president, Washington’s priority for bilateralism over multilateralism in trade talks, or nuclear deals has put severe strain on the ‘free world’. The emergence of powerful ‘southern’ states with a different set of norms such as China, India and other major BRICS, as well as near-BRICS, presents to the global hierarchy of power relations. One of the striking features of recent years, although somewhat unexpected and paradoxical, is that the coalition of authoritarian BRICS, the China-Russia axis, has become one of the dominant elements within the club of BRICS itself. A phenomenon that has not been properly challenged by the more democratic BRICS, such as India, Brazil and South Africa. The outcome of this process is that the China-Russia axis may present itself as an increasingly powerful alternative, especially to countries that are already governed by authoritarian regimes or are in the category of ‘hybrid regimes’ or ‘illiberal democracies’. Hence, the declining North in the post-global crisis context clearly manifested itself both in the US and Western Europe in a growing inward orientation and single-minded concern with domestic problems. This increasing inward orientation and narrowly interest-driven approach to regional and global problems means that the West no longer seems to command its previously dominant position and serve as a natural leader for many countries in the developing world. Consequently, the increasing preoccupation of Western powers with setting their own house in order has also meant that they have remained fundamentally passive to the major humanitarian crises of the new era, such as the Syrian crisis with its devastating consequences. Western powers seemed to have neither the collective capacity nor the willingness to facilitate the transformation of the Middle East with the onset of the Arab Spring in the way they aided the transformation of the post-communist Eastern Europe in the 1990s.

Contemporary far right populist movements has established itself as a strong counter-reaction to the ongoing globalization process that was grounded on the building blocks like modernity and liberalism. As the national boundaries became blurred in Western societies due to market liberalization and integration project like the EU, Western capitals increasingly found its way towards southern hemisphere for cheap labour. Mass ill-managed immigration coupled with a huge influx of refugees, loss of jobs, financial recession and cultural backlash has created widespread discontent among the populous of the North. The feeling of under-representation from the mainstream political entities has pushed the ‘losers’ of this globalization process towards the extreme right. Indeed, populism is the nightmare for moderate politics, for centre-left reform politics, for the political coalition between the low-skilled and highly skilled, the low educated and high educated. Populism, in its core, is a revolt against this imagined future, the future world of the political, economic and cultural elite. The notion that the future will be a post-national European future, a multicultural future, a globalized future, a future of permanent learning in a meritocratic knowledge economy, based on market flexibility and dynamics; that notion of the future is now getting strongly contested by the emergence of the latest cycle of populism.