Because, similar to the US, they have authoritarian tendencies - strong nationalism and anti-immigration. How are you going to round up the bad people if you don't have surveillance everywhere?
Well the Axis powers from World War II are the most obvious demonstrations of nationalism begetting authoritarianism. Germany, Italy, and Japan were nationalist in the extreme. And Italy from that time is such a clear example that it's basically the canonical example used to teach how fascism emerges.
Contemporary examples include the Philippines, Hungary, Poland's Law and Justice Party, and arguably Russia, Turkey and India. Modi is a Hindu nationalist. The United States unfortunately is shaping up to count as an example as well.
Extreme forms of nationalism tend to have a narrative of grievance, a desire to restore a once a great national identity, and a tendency to divide the world into loyal citizens, and enemies without and within, against whom authoritarians powers must be mobilized.
So there's a conceptual basis, in terms of setting the stage for rationalizing authoritarianism, as well as abundant historical examples demonstrating the marriage of nationalism and authoritarianism in action. There's nothing wrong with not knowing, but I would say there's an extremely strong and familiar historical canon to those who study the topic.
Here is an interesting review of how the two are historically strongly correlated[1].
Their conclusion is that "[...] ethnic and elitist forms of
nationalism, which combine to forge exclusive nationalism,
help to perpetuate autocratic regimes by continually legitimating minority exclusions [...]"
Right-wing nationalism as we're currently experiencing it is exclusive. It broadly advocates for restoring revised historical cultural narratives of a particular ethnic group, for immigration restriction and immigrant removal, for further minority culture erasure, and so on.
Do you know the history of nationalism in Europe, and Germany in particular? Hint: it’s the “Na” part of “Nazi.”
You are getting downvoted because this pretty basic stuff. Either you’re part of today’s lucky 10k, or your post reads very much like far-right Gish galloping.
Authoritarian? You're saying this because of immigration; this comes from a position that is basically open borders. It is an interesting double standard. The people that hold this position would not consider non-Western countries that don't want to have open borders or have dramatic demographic shifts in their population and culture to be "authoritarian." This whole notion of "rounding up the bad people" is just infantile leftist stuff. How do you have a sovereign country if you are not able to have a policy that prevents unfettered 'immigration' or unable to deport those that immigrated contrary to law?
The whole concept of a country as a related group of people from one ethnicity or historical origin is relatively recent.
Feudalism did not have this concept; a country was the land belonging to a king (or equivalent), mediated through a set of nobles. There was no concept of illegal or legal immigration; the population of a country were the people who worked for, or were owned by, the nobles ruling that country. There were land rights granted to peasants who had historically lived in that place, but these could and were often overruled by nobles.
European nobility had no such idea of ethnicity or national grouping; the English monarchy is a German family, and most of European nobility were related to each other much more closely than to the citizens of their country.
Early post-monarchy states didn't have this concept. The English Civil War and the French Revolution didn't create states that had a defined concept of the citizen as a member of any ethnic grouping. Again, there's no mention of immigration in any of the documents from this period. It just wasn't a concept they thought about.
The whole concept that a nation-state is a formalisation of a historical grouping of ethnically related people is a very recent one, only a couple of hundred years old.
So to answer your question: It is very easy to have a sovereign country without a policy that prevents unfettered immigration; you just don't care about your population being ethnically diverse. Your citizens are the people who live in your country, and have undergone whatever ceremony and formality you decide makes them citizens.
This is, after all, how America historically did this; if you arrived in America and pledged allegiance, you became a citizen of America.
zaphar|4 months ago
shakna|4 months ago
Blame the Jews, the immigrants, the trans, and then people will grudgingly accept the Gestapo, ICE, prosecution without proof or courts.
Which then allows you to target the opposition without proof.
croes|4 months ago
unknown|4 months ago
[deleted]
glenstein|4 months ago
Contemporary examples include the Philippines, Hungary, Poland's Law and Justice Party, and arguably Russia, Turkey and India. Modi is a Hindu nationalist. The United States unfortunately is shaping up to count as an example as well.
Extreme forms of nationalism tend to have a narrative of grievance, a desire to restore a once a great national identity, and a tendency to divide the world into loyal citizens, and enemies without and within, against whom authoritarians powers must be mobilized.
So there's a conceptual basis, in terms of setting the stage for rationalizing authoritarianism, as well as abundant historical examples demonstrating the marriage of nationalism and authoritarianism in action. There's nothing wrong with not knowing, but I would say there's an extremely strong and familiar historical canon to those who study the topic.
mattlutze|4 months ago
Their conclusion is that "[...] ethnic and elitist forms of nationalism, which combine to forge exclusive nationalism, help to perpetuate autocratic regimes by continually legitimating minority exclusions [...]"
Right-wing nationalism as we're currently experiencing it is exclusive. It broadly advocates for restoring revised historical cultural narratives of a particular ethnic group, for immigration restriction and immigrant removal, for further minority culture erasure, and so on.
1: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:859c6af4-d4fd-461e-b605-42...
adastra22|4 months ago
You are getting downvoted because this pretty basic stuff. Either you’re part of today’s lucky 10k, or your post reads very much like far-right Gish galloping.
dinkumthinkum|4 months ago
marcus_holmes|4 months ago
Feudalism did not have this concept; a country was the land belonging to a king (or equivalent), mediated through a set of nobles. There was no concept of illegal or legal immigration; the population of a country were the people who worked for, or were owned by, the nobles ruling that country. There were land rights granted to peasants who had historically lived in that place, but these could and were often overruled by nobles.
European nobility had no such idea of ethnicity or national grouping; the English monarchy is a German family, and most of European nobility were related to each other much more closely than to the citizens of their country.
Early post-monarchy states didn't have this concept. The English Civil War and the French Revolution didn't create states that had a defined concept of the citizen as a member of any ethnic grouping. Again, there's no mention of immigration in any of the documents from this period. It just wasn't a concept they thought about.
The whole concept that a nation-state is a formalisation of a historical grouping of ethnically related people is a very recent one, only a couple of hundred years old.
So to answer your question: It is very easy to have a sovereign country without a policy that prevents unfettered immigration; you just don't care about your population being ethnically diverse. Your citizens are the people who live in your country, and have undergone whatever ceremony and formality you decide makes them citizens.
This is, after all, how America historically did this; if you arrived in America and pledged allegiance, you became a citizen of America.