Vol 24, No 2 (2022): World Politics and International Security Facing New Nationalism

The guest editor of this issue Sergey Shein, a recognized expert in European and British politics, conservative ideology, right-wing populism, and the role of traditional values, introduces the current issue of our journal and reflects on the stated topic - new nationalism - through the prism of approaches proposed at the 26th World Congress of the International Political Science Association. The editor defines the purpose of this issue as contributing to the scholarly discussion on the momentum of nationalist parties and movements in their various regional and national variations for world politics.

Since the second half of the XX century, the importance of social and humanitarian resources has been increasing. This process intensified in the XXI century, which is reflected in the sphere of international security. The study analyzes the mechanisms through which the social and humanitarian resources affect international security problems, solving or escalating them. If the Copenhagen School began to include the social and humanitarian phenomena in the security sphere, this research focuses on how social and humanitarian resources are used in the security sphere (including in the military field). At the same time, it claims that the growing involvement of social and humanitarian resources in security issues does not mean a decrease in the importance of military and political instruments. The author considers the evolution of the use of social and humanitarian resources in the field of international security from the Cold War period to the present. They show that, in general, the social and humanitarian resources are becoming more diverse in their tools, as well as more and more important in solving international security problems. They note that in conflict situations social and humanitarian resources are used in two ways: 1) for the peaceful settlement of conflicts and 2) in order to win. In addition to conflicts, social and humanitarian resources can also be applied to such areas of international security as terrorism, migration, biogenic threats, threats related.

The article attempts to reveal if it is possible to make a differentiated analysis of the global dimension of populism by systematizing foreign (mainly) and domestic studies. This allowed us to correlate the theoretical and comparative developments of research on populism, on the one hand, and the relevant, traditional problem areas of the international relations theory. This approach helped us to demonstrate both the existing and potential possibilities for a differentiated analysis of the global aspects of populism. The scientific novelty of the article lies in determining the possibilities of the academic field for the analysis of the foreign policy effects of populism. As a result of the study, the author concluded that the foreign policy positions and policies of populists derive from domestic politics and their opposition to traditional elites. Structural pressure (pressure of the international environment) and the adoption of the rules of the game after coming to power, even if the anti-elite discourse is maintained, make attempts to typify and classify populist foreign policy positions extremely complex and often unproductive.

The “Vox” party has turned into an influential actor of the European politics due to its electoral success; institutional and ideological adaptation to the country’s changing party landscape; attempts to create its own institutional, organizational, informational, and creative resources; as well as its policy of forming strong alliances with European and American rightwing conservative forces. Based on the spatial approach (categories of political space and political identity) and discourse-analysis, the author tries to comprehend the policy guidelines of “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. The study focuses on the political and institutional aspects of how “Vox” strengthens its relations with similar EU parties based on partisan and ideological identity, designing alternative projects of European integration, and establishing a new, ideologized format for the relations of Spain (and more broadly - the EU) and the Ibero-American countries. The author concludes about the structuring and the formal institutionalization of communications and political interactions between the far-right political elites which carries risks for the EU’s efforts to create a macropolitical identity and the metanarrative of memory, therefore, potentially leading to political divisions in the EU.

There is an ongoing political debate on whether certain groups can be considered the electoral backbone of right-wing populist parties. On the one hand, it is argued that there is no concept of a “typical voter” for right-wing populists; on the other hand, some studies of election campaigns in different countries show that it is possible to define electoral support groups for such political parties based on the social, professional, and demographic characteristics. The cases of the “Alternative for Germany” and the “Austrian Freedom Party” analyzed in the article demonstrate that the latter statement is more likely to be true. Those support groups can be identified within the framework of the sociological theory of electoral behavior, as well as the theories of the losers of globalization by H. G. Betz and the cultural backlash of P. Norris and R. Inglehart, using the analysis of existing relevant statistics, mainly sociological surveys. The examples of Germany and Austria prove the assumptions that men, workers, people with no higher education and the unemployed are more likely to vote for right-wing populist parties.

Turkish foreign policy, largely characterized as political selfishness, reflects the set of ideological concepts known as the new Turkish nationalism, which makes the country a rather difficult partner to deal with. This article examines the problem of the new Turkish nationalism. It focuses particularly on the Turkish-centric integration under the “neo-Ottoman” foreign policy as a new form of Turkish nationalism, which is especially evident on the space of the so-called “Turkic world”. The authors analyze the main features of Turkish nationalism in the econom ic, political, cultural, and educational spheres. They note that in the humanitarian sphere Turkey continues to focus on the “common Turkic” institutions as well as the ideas of the pan-Turkism ideologists of the past amidst the urge for unification. Moreover, the article considers the concept of Turkey’s self-perception as a “hub”, which generally occurs in all the above-mentioned areas. At the same time, all cases under study are affected by the populist expressions of the Turkish political elite about the unity of the Turks of the world.

Ethno-regional parties play a vital role in the conflict between the center and the ethnic regions, which is relevant for all modern multiethnic EU states. The European integration allows these parties to participate in the regional policy of the EU (contributing to the decentralizing reforms in the member states), as well as to interact within Euroregions and on communitarian platforms, such as the European Parliament. This article aims to clarify if this ethno-regionalist faction is able to influence the integration processes in Europe, and to what extent. To achieve this goal, we need to answer the following questions: how can the ethno-regionalists be described from a theoretical point of view? What is the dynamic of their development within the European Parliament, considering the historical retrospective? What are their current ideological attitudes that allow them to maintain unity and achieve success? The article is based on the author’s concept of cultural-territorial differentiations, which points the correlation between the political ethno-regional movement and the existing ethnocultural features and historical territory. The author concludes that it was Europeanization that led to the strengthening of the ethno-regional movement in Europe as it made the question of the ethno-regional collective response relevant. Therefore, ethno-regionalists are an essential element of every political system at the national and supranational levels. At the same time, the historical evolution and experience of European regionalists prove that they cannot constitute an independent and autonomous political force at the supranational level as their cooperation depends on various legal and political circumstances occurring on the state level.