The Impact Of Globalization On Nationalism And Cultural Identity

POLI11600 Impact of Globalization

Loss of Cultural Identity

Globalisation is understood as a process of integration and interaction in between companies, people and the governmental bodies all across the globe. The world is becoming a global village where technology and communication is playing a major role in the connecting people. This is having effect on several aspects of life and living. Nationalism is considered as the political, economic and social ideology of any nation (Ariely, 2012). It is a movement that is characterised by promotion of interests of a specific nation. Nationalism most of the time helps in maintaining and gaining sovereignty of nation over its control area.  In the era of globalisation where the interactions between different countries have increased, the sovereignty of various nations has been compromised. Due to this the nationalism in any country is under pressure.

The base of it starts with the fact that due to globalisation there is loss in the identity of people in terms of culture, historical existence. All the people are becoming similar and there daily life is getting similar all across the globe. People are migrating from one part of the country to another part and this migration is resulting in mixing of both cultures. This is affecting the people’s ideology about them as a nation (D’Costa, 2012). Since nationalism is highly moved by the fact that there is historical existence of the country and culture binds them all. If the cultural values gets weaken then their feeling about any country might weaken. As nationalism is also an idea of keeping pride in their own country and globalisation has made world less pluralistic hence their essence of differentiating themselves from other countries have reduced.

At the time of world war it was the nationalism that made them strong as a country. This helped in overcoming the problems they were facing as an ethnic identity. Nationalism helped the countries to unite their people so as to remain strong as a nation. Industrialisation was seen as a phase when actual globalisation start but it was the same reason why most of the countries become colonised. The countries which were having technology and factories started doing business in many parts of the world (Baylis, Smith & Owens, 2017). Due to this the poor or the weaker countries did not understood the demand of staying as a nation and hence started falling down and hence resulting themselves into the colonial state. In the 21^st century every country is getting highly dependent on each other in terms of the trade and economic affairs. Due to the increase in the numbers of multinational companies the effect on the economic and political condition in one part of the world is affecting the conditions in other nation (Abdulsattar, 2013). People migration from one country to another is forcing governments to make a flexible relationship with each other. Due to this, they are compromising on various parameters and this is weakening the roots of nationalism in common people.

Impact on Nationalism

In order to further understand the affect, consider the example of technology which is driving the idea of today’s youth. An idea generated from any one part of the world is getting implanted in other parts. This is reducing their cultural thinking ability. This can be easily seen in the case of fashion as most part of the world is attracted towards the western clothing and style (Rai, 2013). People wearing these cloths are forgetting their own culture and this is taking them away from their own cultural outfits. World looking same cannot portray nationalism. Taking an example of India, where Mahatma Gandhi once suggested boycotting western cloths during the boycott movement. This was done by him so as to make people feel united and promoting the feeling of patriotism in the minds of people. This played an important role in strengthening the force of people who was fighting for freedom. What such things does is that it makes people dependent on some other country and hence the feeling of nationalism has reduced in the minds of the people.

In every region there is one or two big nations and these nations have impact on the lifestyle of the neighbouring weaker countries (Bekhuis, Lubbers & Verkuyten, 2013). This weakness is often enjoyed by the powerful country. This can be understood by another example from India where the Indian cinema and TV serials are played on the televisions of Pakistan and Nepal as well as in Bangladesh. People in these countries are highly motivated by the entertainment industry of India and hence their own entertainment industry is not able to grow so much. Such things have negative effect on the feeling of nationalism of any particular country.

Apart from this, when the people from one country go into some other country, they are identified on the basis of their nation which is clear from their ascent and the way they live. This is the thing that keeps them attached with their own nation while living in that country also. Due to globalisation people are not identifying themselves to be from unique identity and hence after sometime they forget their original identity (Olzak, 2011). Due to technology, people are seeing and analysing other cultures and sometimes adopting it as well. This is removing their uniqueness as a country.

In the European region, due to the economic and political concerns, they became a united force in the name of European Union. This European Union helped the countries to counter security and economic concerns but it took individual identities. The same countries which fought with each other in the World War I and II came together with no boundaries. This allowed easy movement of people from one country to another country (Jensen, Arnett & McKenzie, 2011). Organisations like European Union have given the power to people to identify themselves as a post-national citizen. This has promoted the idea of homogenous Europe. People are now not giving higher priority to promote their culture or triumph about the history they had. In this time, people are easily adopting what is trending irrespective of the place they belong to. This is transforming the ideas of citizenship. Economic nationalism which drives the world for major part of the 20^th century is almost undermined. The states which will try to shift from neo-liberalism economic policy to nationalist economics will do a suicide. The recession of 2008, gave an indication that how the effect on economic condition of any one country is going to affect the whole world.

Economic and Political Impact of Globalization

Technology has allowed people to order products from other nations. This is reducing the capacity of nation’s own growth and hence having impact on its economic autonomy. But people are less concerned about it and have kept nationalism in secondary priority list (Mansbach & Ferguson, 2012). This can be understood by the example of Trade in China and other neighbouring countries. Since China is able to sell the products at lower cost due to reduced production cost, they have occupied the major part of the market. This is having effect on the cultural identity.

Globalisation is also affecting the eating habits of the people. This can be understood by the example of McDonalds which has created a new fast food markets in different countries. They are taking national food out the race. This is affecting the choice of the people in terms of eating habits. Since the control of technology is in the hands of western countries hence they are driving the mind-set of people irrespective of the country they are living in. This is worse in the case of poor countries which are not able to fight back against the evils in the society (Guibernau, 2013). For instance there is a saying that what good is nationalism when it cannot buy a food to poor. People often keep their living standards as their major priority over the nationalism.

This is also the reason why other countries are able to create terrorism in other nations. This can be understood by the example that any nation buys the poor of other countries and promotes them to do anti-national activities in the exchange of money. Since money in the globalised world can be transferred through various untraceable mediums hence the numbers of people that are indulged in the anti-national activities are increasing (Agnew, 2017). This is harming state and its practices. State-sovereignty is at risk due to thesis such as no boundaries just one globe.

The effect can also be seen in terms of music and art. Most of the art of the tribal regions are getting vanished because the youth did not wanted to follow them. The effect of globalisation on culture is so deep that many cultures are getting extinct because there new generations are more fascinated about the western cultures and they are getting away from their own original identities (Rosenmann, Reese & Cameron, 2016).

Many researchers believes that the peak of nationalism has passed and no country can exist individually and hence more calculative decisions are taken by different countries over the issue of either sticking to their own cultural identity or going with what is going in the world (Erwin, 2017). Countries need to put efforts for ensuring that their cultural identity remains unique as it helps them n holding as a nation.

References:

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Agnew, J. (2017). Globalization and Sovereignty: Beyond the Territorial Trap. Rowman & Littlefield.

Ariely, G. (2012). Globalization, immigration and national identity: How the level of globalization affects the relations between nationalism, constructive patriotism and attitudes toward immigrants?. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 15(4), 539-557.

Baylis, J., Smith, S., & Owens, P. (Eds.). (2017). The globalization of world politics: An introduction to international relations. Oxford University Press.

Bekhuis, H., Lubbers, M., & Verkuyten, M. (2013). How education moderates the relation between globalization and nationalist attitudes. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 26(4), 487-500.

D’Costa, A. P. (Ed.). (2012). Globalization and economic nationalism in Asia. Oxford University Press.

Erwin, A. 2017. Nationalism in a Globalized Era. Retrieved From: https://medium.com/westminster-journal/nationalism-in-a-globalized-era-15ae61904bcd

Guibernau, M. (2013). Nationalisms: The nation-state and nationalism in the twentieth century. John Wiley & Sons.

Jensen, L. A., Arnett, J. J., & McKenzie, J. (2011). Globalization and cultural identity. In Handbook of identity theory and research (pp. 285-301). Springer, New York, NY.

Mansbach, R. W., & Ferguson, Y. H. (2012). Globalization: the return of borders to a borderless world?. Routledge.

Olzak, S. (2011). Does globalization breed ethnic discontent?. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 55(1), 3-32.

Rai, S. M. (2013). Gender and the political economy of development: From nationalism to globalization. John Wiley & Sons.

Rosenmann, A., Reese, G., & Cameron, J. E. (2016). Social identities in a globalized world: challenges and opportunities for collective action. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(2), 202-221.