Impact of Globalization on Nationalism

Impact of Globalization
on
Nationalism

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Impact of globalization on nationalism
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 21st 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

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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.
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.