What If It’s Not in Our Country’s Interest? Against the Nationalist Turn
Sarah-Lea Effert and Sören Hilbrich thjat we must do better in building a convincing cosmopolitan case for foreign policy and rally support for it.
Recent years have seen a remarkable shift in the way in which governments justify their actions in the global sphere. We truly seem to have entered an “age of national interests”, where policy-makers base all decisions in international relations on self-interest-driven considerations. The recent coalition agreement of the new German government for example strongly stresses the benefits of development cooperation for the export-oriented German economy, as well as the role it is supposed to play in preventing migration to Europe.
Even those advancing the importance of global sustainable development, rule-based global governance, development cooperation and international climate action are increasingly basing their arguments on supposed “national interests”. For instance, many of the objections to Trump’s attacks on USAID referred to a loss of soft power or an increased risk of pandemics spreading to the US.
The impact on those most affected – the populations of partner countries – often played only a minor role. It is understandable that the current pressure on international cooperation leads many to resort to such narratives. However, this discursive shift is dangerous because it strengthens nationalist narratives and has adverse consequences for the practice of international cooperation.
Nationalist narratives need to be confronted
International relations is a policy field where the rise of nationalist movements is felt particularly strong. The new US government, as well as most European countries (perhaps in a somewhat milder form), is currently orienting its external actions even more than before around national interests. These national interests are often framed through a narrow focus on economic, defence, and migration issues, typically based on an exclusivist and homogenising view of a country's population. Moreover, national interests are frequently defined with striking disregard for the empirical realities of global interconnections and mutual dependencies.
Rather than turning against the “our country first”-agenda on a more fundamental ground, many working on international and development cooperation challenge this narrow understanding of national interests. They argue that – properly understood – national interests are much broader and do include investments in multilateral governance, development cooperation, international climate action, global public health, civil crisis prevention, and so on. Opting for this communicative strategy is arguably motivated by the belief that, in the current political climate, this reasoning is most effective in garnering public support. And as international cooperation can indeed have benefits for all parties, these arguments are in many cases factually correct.
However, retreating almost exclusively to self-interested justifications for international cooperation concedes too much to the nationalist wave we are currently experiencing. If even those working in this area do not openly defend internationalist or cosmopolitan ideals, nationalist narratives will inevitably win out. We should not seek to appease nationalist movements. We should reject a discourse converging on the idea that the only thing that could possibly count in a country’s policy-decisions are the immediate interests of its citizens. Nationalist movements cannot be fought by making concessions; they must be openly confronted.
Moral and political responsibilities to non-citizens
Instead of trying to align their policy ideas with nationalist narratives, those defending international cooperation should firmly assert that governments, in their external relations, should be guided by more than just national self-interest. On several grounds, governments have moral and political responsibilities not only to their own citizens but also to people living beyond their borders:
Humanitarian responsibilities and the protection of human rights: Even among the advocates of a restricted national interests-perspective, we often find recognition of the responsibility to assist people in dire need, whose human rights are at risk. Such humanitarian duties hold regardless of how the emergency situation came about and in what relationships we stand with those in need. UN agencies constantly warn that their inadequate budgets are foreseeably putting the lives of millions of people in acute danger. Governments that have the means to fill these funding gaps without making any meaningful sacrifice have an obligation to do so.
Structural and historical injustices: The relationships in which we stand with others give rise to responsibilities – responsibilities based on the harmful consequences of our actions, based on past or present injustices from which we benefit and based on the social structures in which we are implicated. It is so obviously unjust that people who have neither contributed to nor benefited from activities that caused the climate catastrophe are often its greatest victims. Similarly, it is simply unjustifiable that a miner in the Global South receives a so much smaller share of the economic wealth jointly produced in global value chains than those in other positions in the global economy. These injustices create a dual responsibility: to change social structures that perpetuate such injustices, and to compensate those who have been unfairly disadvantaged.
The provision of global public goods: We also stand in relations to others in jointly benefitting from public goods. Contributions to global public goods, such as a stable climate, cannot ultimately be justified on the basis of national self-interests. If the benefits that people living elsewhere derive from a country’s contribution are disregarded, making this contribution is usually not worth the costs. From a purely self-interested perspective, it is simply better to free-ride on the contributions of others. Recognising that each country has to contribute its fair share is thus essential for the adequate provision of global public goods.
Solidarity with those fighting for values we share: Solidarity asks us to stand with others in their struggles for freedom, equality and a life that allows for human flourishing. We can only credibly and sustainably uphold our own commitments to such values if we stand up for them wherever they are under attack. For instance, solidarity demands that we do not remain silent when a democracy or a women’s rights movement is being violently suppressed by an autocratic regime – even if this hurts our own economic interests.
These arguments do not require us to forget what we want for ourselves, but they do ask us to think more about the role we should play in the world we want to live in.
Adverse consequences for the practice of international cooperation
Neglecting this perspective and seeing national interests as the only possible justification for the external activities of governments will make a practical difference. As described, it will mean that important global public goods will likely not be provided. Furthermore, if every single development cooperation project further comes under pressure to demonstrate a direct link to the economic or security interests of the donor country, this will lead to a reallocation of resources. Countries that are not of particular military interest, that do not possess critical raw materials and that are not important for migration policy will lose out – regardless of the humanitarian needs of their populations or the injustices they experience. In addition, the pressure to cooperate with governments that violate human rights will increase if these governments have something of geopolitical interest to offer.
In practice, the strategy pursued by many advocates of international cooperation to argue for a broader and more long-term understanding of national interests simply works only to a very limited extent. We should always remain aware and critical of whose interests even count in the formation of so-called “national interests”. The interests of the most vulnerable, the least represented, those without the right to vote, often play at best a marginal role. One might portray deals on raw materials or “migration agreements”, such as the deals of the EU with North African countries, as fostering reciprocal national interests. Yet they often disregard the interests and perspectives of those most affected by the climate crisis, migrants and refugees themselves, or other vulnerable groups.
Expecting more than a “new honesty”
Against our case, one might welcome the new emphasis on national interests as a new honesty. Arguably, external activities of governments have always been driven primarily by self-interests. Many references to moral reasons are little more than sugarcoating. In addition, a reciprocal cooperation, in which all parties pursue their own interests, might be more likely to allow partners to meet on an eye level. In this respect, framing cooperation as a reciprocal endeavour might be a step forward compared to a charity framing that portrays one party as benevolent saviour and the other party as a helpless beneficiary without much agency. Challenging such framings is important. And objection to current cooperation practices – for example from a decolonial perspective – should not be withheld out of fear of weakening a sector that is already under substantial pressure. However, we should expect more than a new honesty. Framings of reciprocity and transactionalism often deny the realities of a world characterised by historical wrongs and extreme power asymmetries between and within countries. Due to historical and structural injustices, states (and individuals and societal groups within them) do not operate on a level playing field where all are able to pursue their interests on an equal footing.
Emphasising that governments have moral and political responsibilities to people living in other countries does not mean subscribing to a framing of international cooperation as charity. On the contrary, adopting this perspective entails viewing people as rights-holders and cooperation partners as actors to whom we owe something. Where interest-based arguments find more appeal right now, we must do better in building a convincing cosmopolitan case and rally support for it. We should have confidence that people can be moved by the fate of people living in other parts of the world. Political discourse is made by those who participate in it. Shifts such as the current nationalist wave are not natural phenomena, they are human-made (and predominantly man-made). It is therefore up to us to avoid moving further into a world where national interests is the only framework in which policy makers can think.
Sarah-Lea Effert is an advisor to the directorate at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). She holds an MPhil in Politics from the University of Oxford.
Sören Hilbrich is a senior researcher at the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). He holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Freie Universität Berlin and a Master’s degree in Philosophy and Economics from the University of Göttingen.
Photo by Miguel Á. Padriñán
