Radical Transformative Nationalisms Confront the US Empire

Abstract

Recently, a literature has grown around the building of what has been variously called a global civil society, transnational social movements or globalization from below, as an alternative to corporate globalization. This paper examines a different alternative radical transformative nationalisms, coupled with international solidarity. In this perspective, globalization is seen as an ideological project of the US Empire. The Washington Consensus promotes US and allied corporate interests and attempts to extinguish the sovereignty barriers in the periphery and semi-periphery to corporate entry. Radical transformative nationalisms are distinguished from ethnic and civic nationalisms and are based on the community-building glue of active citizenship amongst heterogeneous populations in outward-looking political communities. It is argued that international solidarities from below, rather than global solidarities which extinguish distinct political communities, are needed to support the multiple struggles for national and popular sovereignties against the unilateralism and aggression of the US Empire.

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