What is the future of nationalism? Around thirty years ago, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a consensus in the West seemed to emerge that nation-states cooperating in voluntary transnational alliances—the European Union, the G20, the World Trade Organization, and so on—would form the foundation of the post–Cold War world order. The world was becoming flat, we were told, and globalization was not just inevitable, but desirable. Since the turn of the millennium, however, that consensus has been threatened by a dizzying array of challenges, as nativist isolationism, religious fundamentalism, reactionary ethnocentrism, and neocolonial aggression have resurged, destabilizing the ostensibly settled system.
The tensions, conflicts, and contradictions of modern nationhood have only grown more acute in recent years. The war between Russia and Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Gaza, are both flashpoints in long-standing struggles over national legitimacy and international recognition. Nationalism is also at the heart of this year’s U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump’s policy appeal to voters—to the extent that he has one—is built on an explicit rejection of globalism, framed in xenophobic and chauvinist terms. And Democrats, while rejecting Trump’s more blatant nativism, have adopted their own talking points about strong borders and protectionist trade policies in search of a winning political message. One can be forgiven for wondering if we are on the verge of a new era of nationalist chauvinism, a war of all against all played out on the world stage.
Even if that doesn’t materialize, all thinking about the future of nationalism today has to grapple with the reality that the nation-state remains at the center of political life. Even direct challenges to given nation-states tend to operate on the basis of replacing them with other, better but basically comparable ones. How, then, do we think clearly about alternatives when nationalism can sometimes seem as inescapable as the very air we breathe?
The short essays collected here offer fresh ways of thinking through the fault lines of nationalism. These pieces look at contemporary dilemmas and offer new perspectives on old problems, presenting not alternative histories but visions of lost futures, and compelling hard questions, not easy answers. As contributions to an essential, ongoing conversation, they create space for all that remains to be thought and said about the nation.
—the editors
