In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers' success in preventing the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II held in check demands for protectionist and inward-looking measures. But now the backlash against globalisation – and the freer movement of goods, services, capital, labour, and technology that came with it – has arrived.
This new nationalism takes different economic forms: trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favouring domestic workers and firms, anti-immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism. In the political realm, populist, anti-globalisation, anti-immigration, and in some cases outright racist and antisemitic parties are on the rise.
These forces loath the alphabet soup of supranational governance institutions – the EU, the UN, the WTO, and the IMF, among others – that globalisation requires. Even the internet, the epitome of globalisation for the past two decades, is at risk of being balkanised as more authoritarian countries – including China, Iran, Turkey, and Russia – seek to restrict access to social media and crack down on free expression.
read more @ http://www.theguardian.com/business/economics-blog/2014/jun/02/economic-insecurity-nationalism-on-the-rise-globalisation-nouriel-roubini
Nouriel Roubini is an American professor of Economics at New York University`s Stern School of Business and chairman of RGE Roubini Global Economics
