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Nigel Farage depicts his political party as a distinct phenomenon that has burst on to the world stage, its meteoric rise an exceptional historic moment. However this week, in every one of the continent's leading countries and from the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia to the United States and South America, hard-right, anti-immigrant, anti-globalisation parties like his are also leading in the public surveys.

During recent Czech voting, the conservative, pro-Russian leader Andrej Babiš overthrew prime minister Petr Fiala. A French political group, which has just forced the resignation of yet another France's leader, is leading the polls for both the French presidency and the legislature. In Germany, the right-wing AfD party is currently the most popular party. A Hungarian political force, Robert Fico’s pro-Russian Slovakian coalition and the Italian political group are already in power, while the Austrian FPÖ, the Dutch PVV and Belgian Vlaams Belang – all hardline nationalists – are part of an international coalition of anti-internationalists, inspired by right-wing influencers like Steve Bannon, seeking to overthrow the global legal order, weaken human rights and undermine international collaboration.

Rise of Populist Nationalism

This nationalist wave reveals a recent undeniable reality that supporters of democracy ignore at great risk: an authoritarian ethnic nationalism – once thought defeated with the Berlin Wall – has supplanted economic liberalism as the dominant ideology of our age, giving us a world of priorities: “US priority”, “Indian focus”, “China first”, “Russia first”, “group priority” and often “exclusive group focus” regimes. It is this ethnic nationalism that helps explain why the world is now composed of 91 autocracies and only 88 democracies, and this ideology is the driver behind the breaches of international human rights law not just by Russia in Ukraine but in almost every one of the world’s 59 cross-border conflicts and civil wars.

Understanding the Underlying Forces

Crucial to grasp the root causes, widespread globally, that have driven this new age of nationalism. It begins with a broadly shared perception that a globalization that was accessible yet exclusionary has been a unregulated system that has been unjust to all.

For more than a decade, leaders have not only been delayed in addressing to the millions who feel excluded and left behind, but also to the shifting dynamics of global economic power, transitioning from a unipolar world once led by the US to a multi-power landscape of rival major nations, and from a rules-based order to a power-based one. The ethnic nationalism that this has provoked means free trade is being replaced by protectionism. Where economics used to drive politics, the nationalist agendas is now driving financial choices, and already over a hundred nations are running mercantilist policies marked out by reshoring and ally-focused trade and by restrictions on cross-border trade, investment and knowledge sharing, lowering international cooperation to its weakest point since the post-war period.

Optimism in Public Opinion

However, there is hope. The situation is not fixed, and even as it solidifies we can see optimism in the pragmatism of the world's population. In a recent survey for a prominent organization, of 36,000 people in 34 countries we find a clear majority are less receptive to an exclusionary nationalism and more inclined to embrace global teamwork than many of the officials who govern them.

Across the world there is, maybe unexpectedly, only a limited number of hardened anti-internationalists representing a minority of the global population (even if 25% in the United States currently) who either feel peaceful living between ethnic and religious groups is impossible or have a zero-sum mindset that if they or their country do well, it has to be at the cost of others doing badly.

However there are another 21% at the opposite extreme, whom we might call dedicated globalists, who either still see international collaboration through open trade as a positive sum win-win, or are what an influential thinker calls “rooted cosmopolitans”.

Worldwide Public Position

The vast majority of the global public are moderate in views: not isolated patriots, as “America first” ideology would suggest, or fully global citizens. They are devoted to their country but don’t see the world as in a permanent conflict between the “us” and the “others”, adversaries always divided from each other in an irreconcilable gap.

Are most moderates prefer a obligation-light or a dutiful world? Are they prepared to accept obligations beyond their local area or community boundaries? Affirmative, under specific circumstances. A initial segment, about a fifth, will support humanitarian action to alleviate hardship and are prepared to act out of altruism, supporting emergency help for disaster zones. Those we might call “good cause” cooperation advocates feel the pain of others and have faith in something bigger than themselves.

Another segment comprising 22% are pragmatic multilateralists who want to know that any public funds for international development are used effectively. And there is a third group, roughly a fifth, self-interested multilateralists, who will endorse teamwork if they can see that it benefits them and their communities, whether it be through guaranteeing them food on the table or peace and security.

Forging a Collaborative Consensus

Thus a definite majority can be built not just for emergency assistance if funds are used wisely but also for international measures to deal with global problems, like climate crisis and pandemic prevention, as long as this argument is presented on grounds of wise personal benefit, and if we emphasize the reciprocal benefits that benefit them and their own country. And thus for those who have long wondered whether we cooperate out of need or if we have a need to cooperate, the response is each.

This willingness to cooperate across borders shows how we can turn back the anti-foreigner sentiment: we can overcome current pessimistic, isolated and often forceful and controlling nationalism that demonises immigrants, outsiders and “different groups” as long as we advocate for a positive, outward-looking and welcoming patriotism that addresses people’s desire to belong and connects to their immediate concerns.

Tackling Key Issues

Although detailed surveys tell us that across the Western nations, unauthorized entry is currently the top concern – and it's clear that it must promptly be brought under control – the snapshots of opinion also tell us that the people are even more worried by what is happening in their own lives and within their own local communities. Recently, the UK Prime Minister spoke movingly about how what’s positive in the nation can drive out what’s bad, doing so precisely because in most western countries, “broken” and “deteriorating” are the words people have for years most frequently used when asked about both our financial system and society.

However, as the leader also pointed out, the extreme right is more interested in exploiting grievances than ending them. A Reform leader praised a disastrous mini-budget as “an excellent fiscal policy” since the 1980s. But he would also implement a similar plan – what was planned – the largest reductions in public services. The party's proposal to reduce public spending by £275bn would not repair downtrodden communities but damage them, create social division and destroy any spirit of solidarity. Under a far-right government, you will not be able to afford to be ill, disabled, poor or at-risk. Every day from now on, and in every electoral district, the party should be asked which hospital, which educational institution and which public service will be the first to be reduced or closed.

Risks and Solutions

“Faragism” is economic theory at its most cruel, more harmful even than monetarism, and vindictive far beyond austerity. What the public are indicating all over the Western world is that they want their leaders to restore our financial systems and our communities. “The party” and its international partners should be exposed day after day for plans that would harm both. And for those of us who believe our greatest achievements could be in the future, we can go beyond highlighting the party's contradictions by setting out a argument for a improved nation that appeals not just to visionaries, but to realists, to self-interest, and to the daily kindness of the nation's citizens.