Once hailed as an unstoppable force reshaping economies, borders and identities, globalisation is now under unprecedented strain. From Brexit and the rise of populist movements to escalating trade wars and resurgent nationalism, the political landscape of the 21st century looks very different from the one imagined at the end of the Cold War. Yet beneath the headlines lies a deeper question: what happens to national politics when the logic of an integrated world economy begins to fracture?
“The national interest: politics after globalisation,” a research initiative at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), sets out to interrogate this question. Drawing on the university’s long tradition of bridging theory and practice, the project examines how governments, parties and citizens are redefining what “the national interest” means in an era of disrupted supply chains, contested borders and shifting geopolitical power.
Far from signalling a simple retreat into isolationism, the post-globalisation moment is forcing states to rethink their roles in everything from industrial policy and climate action to security and social welfare. By tracing these transformations, LSE scholars aim to illuminate the new fault lines shaping democratic politics – and to understand how countries can navigate a world no longer governed by the old certainties of globalisation.
Redefining national interest in a post globalisation era
Once a largely economic shorthand for maximising growth through open markets, the idea of what serves a country’s best interests is now being rebuilt around resilience, identity and long-term legitimacy. Governments weigh supply chain security against price, digital sovereignty against convenience, and climate commitments against short-term electoral costs. Citizens, too, are rewriting the script: they demand that security includes not only borders and budgets but also public health, data protection and environmental stability. This broader lens turns questions of trade, technology and migration into arenas where competing visions of collective purpose are fought out, often more fiercely than traditional left-right battles over tax or welfare.
- Security now includes energy, food and data as much as territory.
- Prosperity is judged by inequality, not just GDP.
- Identity politics shapes foreign as well as domestic choices.
- Resilience becomes a strategic asset, not an afterthought.
| Old focus | Emerging focus |
|---|---|
| Cheap imports | Trusted supply chains |
| Market access | Technological autonomy |
| Fiscal discipline | Social cohesion |
| Military allies | Climate and health coalitions |
This shift does not erase older calculations of power and profit; it layers them with ethical,ecological and cultural claims that are harder to quantify but politically decisive. As cross-border rules fragment, states increasingly define what matters through the prism of domestic contestation, turning international commitments into extensions of internal culture wars. The struggle over what counts as the “national interest” is no longer confined to diplomatic cables or technocratic briefings; it plays out in media storms, activist campaigns and corporate boardrooms, where actors compete to brand their preferred priorities as both patriotic and unavoidable. In this unsettled landscape, political skill lies in assembling coalitions that can turn a crowded marketplace of national anxieties into a coherent, and publicly defensible, sense of direction.
How digital economies reshape sovereignty and state power
Once borders became permeable to data, code and capital, the authority of governments stopped at the edge of the server farm. Taxation, competition policy and financial regulation are now negotiated not only between states, but between states and platforms whose user bases exceed the population of most countries. National leaders must weigh classic tools of power-tariffs, sanctions, licensing-against the risk of driving innovation offshore or provoking capital flight at the click of a mouse. In this new terrain, algorithm design, data localisation rules and content moderation standards function as instruments of soft coercion, quietly redistributing leverage among governments, big tech and citizens. The result is a more fragmented map of authority, where jurisdiction is contested in app stores, cloud contracts and undersea cables rather than just in parliaments and courts.
Governments are responding with an experimental toolkit that blends digital industrial policy with defensive regulation, seeking to claw back control without choking growth. Some pursue “digital mercantilism”, privileging local champions and walling off data flows; others bet on open ecosystems and cross-border standards to retain influence. These choices expose new trade‑offs in the national interest:
- Security vs. openness – limiting foreign platforms to protect data, while risking economic isolation.
- Innovation vs.control – encouraging start‑ups and AI labs, yet demanding access and oversight.
- Revenue vs. legitimacy – taxing global firms aggressively,but needing their infrastructure and jobs.
| Policy Path | State Power | Digital Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Platform partnership | Shared, negotiated | Fast innovation, patchy control |
| Digital protectionism | Concentrated, brittle | Stronger control, slower growth |
| Regulated openness | Networked, adaptive | Balanced access and safeguards |
Managing migration climate and security through cooperative nationalism
As cross-border displacement accelerates under the pressure of rising seas, prolonged droughts, and collapsing ecosystems, national security doctrines are being quietly rewritten. The stark choice is between walls and frameworks: sealed borders that treat human movement as a threat, or negotiated systems that recognize mobility as a structural feature of the post-globalisation era.In this emerging landscape,states are experimenting with a form of cooperative nationalism-assertively defending domestic priorities while binding themselves to shared rules on asylum,labour mobility,and crisis response. Rather than outsourcing responsibility to supranational bodies, governments seek to shape regional pacts that align with their own democratic mandates. These arrangements increasingly hinge on practical tools: joint visa regimes, interoperable data systems, and coordinated search-and-rescue operations that attempt to stabilise frontiers without abandoning humanitarian obligations.
- Climate risk corridors that flag high-displacement regions ahead of time
- Tiered mobility agreements linking temporary work permits to reconstruction aid
- Shared surveillance and rescue assets to avert both loss of life and border panic
- Local resettlement compacts trading targeted investment for acceptance of new arrivals
| Policy Tool | National Gain | Cooperative Element |
|---|---|---|
| Regional climate visas | Fills labour gaps | Shared quota setting |
| Joint border patrols | Lower policing costs | Common standards |
| Adaptation funds | Reduced arrivals | Co-financed projects |
| City-led pacts | Urban regeneration | Cross-border networks |
These experiments signal a move away from the binary of open versus closed borders towards a more granular calculus of risk, responsibility, and reciprocity. Domestic publics are told that cooperation is not an altruistic luxury but a defensive strategy: by stabilising neighbouring states and offering legal pathways, governments aim to blunt the appeal of smuggling routes and reduce the volatility that fuels extremism at home.Yet the politics remain volatile. Who gets protection, where, and on what terms, becomes a primary arena for contesting what the “national interest” now means. In this politics after globalisation, migration is no longer treated as a temporary shock but as a permanent feature of a warming world-and security is reimagined as something that can only be partially secured within borders, and must be actively constructed between them.
Policy playbook for governments balancing openness and domestic resilience
For policymakers navigating post-globalisation politics, the task is less about retreating behind borders than about rehearsing a new script for interdependence. This means designing frameworks that treat openness as a strategic asset rather than a vulnerability. Governments are experimenting with “friend-shoring” supply chains,screening foreign investment in sensitive sectors,and building public-private resilience compacts to prevent single points of failure. The emerging toolkit blends classical trade policy with instruments once reserved for national security: export controls on key technologies, stress tests for critical imports, and data governance rules that distinguish between benign exchange and systemic exposure. In this environment, domestic resilience is no longer an afterthought to liberalisation; it is indeed the precondition for sustaining it.
- Rewire supply chains to reduce over‑concentration while keeping markets competitive.
- Protect strategic technologies without defaulting to blanket protectionism.
- Invest in skills and infrastructure so workers benefit from open markets rather than bear the costs.
- Use transparency and parliamentary oversight to legitimise new security‑driven economic tools.
| Policy Lever | Openness Goal | Resilience Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Investment screening | Maintain access to foreign capital | Filter risks in critical sectors |
| Strategic stockpiles | Avoid export bans in crises | Guarantee essential supplies |
| Skills compacts | Support labour mobility | Anchor good jobs at home |
| Data accords | Enable cross‑border services | Protect privacy and security |
As these instruments spread, their legitimacy will hinge on process as much as on substance. Transparent criteria, time‑limited emergency measures, and cooperation with international partners can prevent the language of resilience from becoming a cover for old‑fashioned protectionism. The most successful governments will be those that treat this playbook as iterative: piloting new tools, publishing impact assessments, and adjusting course in response to both domestic constituencies and external shocks. In doing so, they can move beyond the binary of globalisation versus nationalism and instead construct a national interest that is robust precisely because it is embedded in a managed, negotiated openness.
Key Takeaways
what “the national interest” means in a post‑globalisation era is neither fixed nor self‑evident.As the LSE scholars surveyed in this article remind us, it is constantly negotiated between competing social groups, reinterpreted through new crises, and reshaped by shifting power relations at home and abroad.
If the long age of unchallenged globalisation blurred the boundaries between domestic and international politics, its unraveling is now forcing governments, parties and citizens to redraw those lines in real time. That process is messy, conflictual and often uncomfortable. But it also opens up space to ask fundamental questions: Who is the nation for? Which interests are protected,and at whose expense? And how should democratic societies balance openness with security,prosperity with equality,sovereignty with interdependence?
The research coming out of the London School of Economics does not offer simple answers. It does something more valuable: it provides the tools to understand how claims about the national interest are constructed, contested and deployed. As the politics of the next decade take shape, that analytical clarity may be one of the few stable reference points in an increasingly unsettled world.
