World Politics and International Security Facing New Nationalism: Introducing the Issue

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The increasing aggressiveness of the international environment and the articulating voices of the “losers of globalization” at the national level have made nationalism and populism the key trends of modern political development. However, it’s more appropriate to use this term alongside the adjective “new”. The World Congress of the International Political Science Association, dedicated to this phenomenon, pointed out very accurately that this type of nationalism differs from its predecessors in that it strives for alienation, confinement and even isolation, and not the construction of new political communities. The new nationalism does not aim at acquiring rights, but rather calls for their limitation, their exclusivity, and their appropriation only by the original community of indigenous people.1 The new nationalism does not seek to build the new, it seeks to preserve the old, but free from the context of globalization and economic interdependence. In this regard, two functional aspects of the new nationalism gain significance - the general and the special for different countries and regions; and the impulse for world politics. These questions are important because, firstly, one of the most important features of the new nationalism is its contextual nature. Although nationalism and populism have become stable characteristics of political systems in a cross-regional perspective - from Latin America to Europe and Asia, their carriers can differ significantly depending on the political, institutional, social, economic, cultural, and historical characteristics of the environment in which they develop. Secondly, nationalists and populists are not limited in their struggle for the “people” within national borders but are increasingly striving to broadcast their programs and strategies to the outside world. The second issue of the journal for 2022 suggests contributing to the scientific discussion regarding the study of the momentum of parties and nationalist movements in their various regional and national variations for world politics. It includes three thematic chapters: “Security in a Changing World: A Socio-Humanitarian Factor”, “Challenges of Populism and Conservative Nationalism”, “Regional EthnoNationalism: Conflict and Coalition Potential”. 1 26th IPSA World Congress of Political Science Theme. Retrieved from https://www.ipsa.org/ events/congress/virtual2021 184 EDITORIAL ARTICLE Шеин С. А. Вестник РУДН. Серия: Политология. 2022. Т. 24. № 2. С. 183-186 Marina Lebedeva from the MGIMO University considers the evolution of how social and humanitarian resources have been used in the field of international security from the Cold War to the present. The study shows that, in general, the social and humanitarian resource is becoming more diverse in its tools, as well as more and more important for resolving international security problems. Sergey Shein and Artem Alikin from the HSE University open the second chapter of the volume. In their review article authors attempt to reveal if it is possible to make a differentiated analysis of the global dimension of populism by systematizing foreign and domestic studies. They correlated the theoretical and comparative developments of research on populism, on the one hand, and the relevant, traditional problem areas of the international relations theory. After the conceptual introduction we offer an overview of European cases of populist discourses and strategies. Elena Burmistrova from Perm University analyses the transformation of the right-wing family agenda in the new social and political context, considers the case of the French National Rally, examining the speeches of party leaders, party programmes and media materials through discourse analysis. Based on concepts of political space and political identity as well as discourse-analysis, Irina Prokhorenko from the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations tries to comprehend the policy guidelines of the far-right Spanish party “Vox”, determines the place of the party in the political system and the media sphere of Spain, defines the role that “Vox” plays in shaping the regional agenda of the EU. Dmitry Meshcheryakov from the MGIMO University analyzes the cases of the “Alternative for Germany” and the “Austrian Freedom Party” and tries to picture a right-wing populists’ “typical voter”, e.g., to define electoral support groups for such political parties based on the social, professional, and demographic characteristics. Joachim Diec from the Jagiellonian University together with Roman Savenkov from Voronezh State University focus on the foreign policy positions of the largest right-wing national populism movements in contemporary Poland. They analyze the program documents of right-wing populist groups, mainly the United Right camp, over the past twenty years, to highlight their key ideas and bullet points. Switching from Europe to the the non-EU countries Vladimir Avatkov and Alina Sbitneva from the INION Institute dedicate their study to the Turkish-centric integration dictated by the “neo-Ottoman” foreign policy course. They argue a special kind of Turkish nationalism in the space of the so-called “Turkic world”. Angelina Malashenkova and Oxana Kharitonova from the MGIMO University identify the factors leading to the electoral success of populist presidents in Latin American democracies on 13 national cases. In the third chapter of the volume Natalia Eremina from the Saint-Petersburg State University aims to clarify if the European ethno-regionalist parties influence the integration processes in Europe and argues that the Europeanization led to a strengthening ethno-regional movement in Europe. Yulia Belous from the HSE University together with Andrei Tarasov from the University of Trento, closing the chapter and the issue, study the behavior of Scottish and Spanish regional political parties to find out why some of them join the coalition, while others choose not to.

About the authors

Sergey A. Shein

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Author for correspondence.
Email: sshein@hse.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9749-9116

PhD in Political Science, Associate Professor at School of International Regional Studies, Research Fellow at Centre of Comprehensive European and International Studies

Moscow, Russian Federation

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