Publications

The purpose of this document is to offer an overview, based on international literature, around a highly topical issue on the political scene and in the academic field, mainly in the area of Economics and Political Science. It is about the relationship between commercial globalization and the formation in recent decades of political platforms of a nationalist nature that reject globalization and that have achieved significant influence in some highly developed countries. An influential current of research has attempted to find a link between these two opposing poles by explaining economic nationalism as a reaction to the unintended distributive consequences of the commercial opening of developed countries to imports from countries with lower wage levels. This document analyzes the pros and cons of this position on a theoretical basis and examines, in the light of international experience, the impact caused by the rapid growth of imports from China. Other possible explanations for the rejection of globalization are also being considered that give a much greater importance to cultural factors and identity aspects than to strictly economic ones, especially in relation to the rejection of immigration by some political platforms. It also enters into the discussion around the supposed lack of compatibility between globalization, national sovereignty and full democratic expression of the diversity of national preferences –Rodrik's trilemma–, exposing its meaning and its limitations.