GLOBALISATION AT THE CROSSROADS? THE REVIVAL OF NATIONALISM AND IDENTITY POLITICS

Abstract

This article is a revised and expanded version of the author’s keynote address for the inaugural International Conference on Politics and International Studies (ICPIS) 2018, held in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. The title reflects the official theme of the said scholarly congregation, which deliberates on the contested notions of globalisation and the phenomenon’s related outcomes, including its much touted hegemonic, universal liberal qualities, which have elicited a backlash that has seen the revival of nationalism and identity politics during the last few decades. That globalisation has arrived at a crossroads and the thought of what might lie ahead is what this paper seeks to ponder, through the prism and critique of both recent as well as older works by the likes of Francis Fukuyama, Charles Taylor, Wang Gungwu and Samuel P. Huntington. More specifically, it critically explores the evolution and progress of globalisation from both historical and international relations (IR) perspectives, explicating watershed eras in the long cycle of modern international history that had as much facilitated as hindered the realisation of a universal liberal consensus, or liberal triumph. Although concluding that globalisation has been stopped in its tracks, the article nevertheless, expresses concerns regarding the limitations of Western-oriented IR as a discipline in comprehensively grasping the complexities of post-globalisation dynamics shaped by cultural-ideational specificities, not to mention, the fallacy of overemphasising on “identity politics” as a “master concept” in explaining all that is happening in contemporary world politics. Instead, it contends on the need to review existing analytical frameworks, while exploring new “logics” in the quest to construct new paradigms to help make sense of a post-globalisation, post-liberal, probably post-Western era.