Longing for a national container. On the symbolic economy of Europe's new nationalism

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses how to explain the rise of a new nationalism in Europe. It begins by problematizing the inconsistencies in the current culturalist, socio-economic, and socio-political approaches. It then makes Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social space fruitful for a sociological explanation of neonationalism by removing it from the conceptional framework of national container societies. It finally shows that the transnational opening of national societies is accompanied by profound processes of symbolic appreciation and depreciation of economic, cultural, and social ‘capital’ that the inhabitants of the national container possess.

KEYWORDS:

• Nationalism
• right-wing populism
• transnationalization
• Pierre Bourdieu
• cultural capital

For years now, almost all countries in the European Union have been witnessing a strengthening of political parties and movements that have put ‘the national’ back on the political agenda. Yet those observing such developments from the vantage point of science and the media fail to agree even on how to describe them. Are they currents of ‘right-wing populism’ that come and go? Or should we more accurately speak of a new nationalism – one that clears our vision to give us an unadorned view of the legitimation crisis of democratic institutions, and one that has unsettled the process of European integration with unforeseeable consequences? Are we seeing a new social movement of those threatened by social decline, who have lost faith in capitalism's promise of prosperity and perceive a globalized economy as a threat to their national welfare? Or is the ‘new’ possibly nothing other than an old nationalism that imagines a we-group as a culturally or ethnically homogenous community that sets itself apart from the ‘others’ (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983; Anderson 1983)?

The present article begins by problematizing the notion of ‘right-wing populism’ and proposing that these phenomena be characterized as ‘neonationalism’ (1). This is followed by an outline of culturalist, socio-economic, and socio-political explanations of the rise of neonationalism (2) and a discussion of some of their main inconsistencies (3). To avoid the reductionism inherent in these models of explanation, I will turn to Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social space – not, however, without first stripping it of its reliance on nationally segmented container societies as its frame of reference. In so doing, I will show that the transnational opening of national societies entails fundamental processes of symbolic appreciation and depreciation of the economic, cultural, and social capital of those who inhabit the national container. Drawing on Bourdieu's typology of capital, I will outline these appreciation and depreciation processes and make them a fruitful point of departure for a non-reductionist sociological explanation of neonationalism (4). The article ends with some considerations on the transnationalization and renationalization of social spaces (5).

1. Right-wing populism?

It is a widely shared assumption in the social sciences that transnationalization has resulted in a loss of significance of the modern nation state (Strange 1996; Sassen 2007; for a critical view, see Fligstein 2001). Contrary to this assumption, we are witnessing a widespread return of political currents that seek to give greater significance to ‘nation’ and ‘nationality’ as the primary reference to lend legitimacy to social closure of whatever kind. To counter such nationalist ideas of social order, the term ‘right-wing populism’ has gained wide currency, especially in politics and the media but also in the social sciences (see Downs 2012; Kriesi and Pappas 2015; Muddle and Kaltwasser 2017; Müller 2017). ‘Right-wing populism’, however, is less a sharply contoured category than a pejorative label for new currents to the right of the frequently invoked political center. What is more, it represents a normative fighting word emanating from the political center's set of values. The term does not appear to represent a particularly suitable social-scientific category for taking a sober look at the changes in political institutions and social conditions in contemporary societies. This is because it is first and foremost a term that implicitly assigns blame. The protagonists of ‘right-wing populism’ are accused of ‘misleading’ large parts of the population into ‘simplifying’ the complexity of the modern world, denigrating the established political parties and their elites, and ‘inciting’ ordinary people to turn against minorities, immigrants, and refugees, while the addressees of the right-wing message are cautioned to not allow those populists to ‘delude’ them.

In the social sciences, it is no easy task to rid oneself of the political center's normative expectations, especially when addressing the issues that are discussed under the signal word of ‘right-wing populism’. To establish a critical distance from the center's normative preconceptions, Max Weber's theory of science (1988) almost invariably comes into play. As is well known, Weber demonstrated how the social and cultural sciences can adopt a perspective that enables them to distinguish between the role of political citizen and of scientific observer. Niklas Luhmann (1990) proposed a comparable epistemological position when coining the concept of ‘observation of observation’. Even if one is not inclined to subscribe to Weber's or Luhmann's methodology without reservations, it would still seem sensible to critically assess the worldviews that circulate in the official spheres in which the state order and its elite functionaries in politics, business, and the media are represented. Otherwise, the social-scientific observer is easily susceptible to observing only that which is in accord with the symbolic monopoly of the official, as Bourdieu described it very convincingly in his posthumously published lectures On the State (2014) given at the Collège de France. In this case, the social-scientific observer can shed light only on those worldviews that one is able to, wants to, is allowed to, or even is forced to see through the lens of the ‘center’. The critical social-scientific mind should, however, not accept being confined to interpretations that commit to what qualifies as legitimate truth within the political center's narrow horizon of thought. This applies particularly to the label ‘right-wing populism’. To avoid the problems associated with this label, I will subsequently not speak of ‘right-wing populism’ but of a new nationalism or neonationalism. This is to clearly mark that what we are witnessing here is a political movement or current that aims to revive ‘the national’ as the all-dominating, exclusionary framework of reference. This nationalism is new inasmuch as it understands itself as a politico-social countermovement to stop or even reverse the transnationalization of European societies.

2. Competing interpretations

There are numerous interpretations circulating in the media and science that claim to explain the rise of neonationalist currents in Europe and have attracted various degrees of attention. We might distinguish culturalist, socio-economic, and socio-political patterns of interpretation. These patterns of interpretation are rarely encountered in their pure form in public or academic debate. What we usually find is a combination of the individual elements of reasoning that belong to one of the three patterns. For this reason alone, it is difficult to clearly attribute the patterns of interpretation to specific protagonists. What is more, these patterns of interpretation emerge in a field of discourse that spans media arenas as well as academic and political debates. For this reason, I will abstain from attributing any of these patterns of interpretation to individual authors.

2.1. Interpretation 1: cultural ‘self-assertion’ in the national container

Culturalist patterns of interpretation attempt to explain the rise of neonationalism in Europe against the backdrop of large-scale migration. European societies, they argue, have effectively become countries of immigration, even though they have never perceived themselves as such. To date, the argument continues, they have failed to sufficiently ‘integrate’ the various migrant groups into the social and cultural order of mainstream society. What has happened instead is that many immigrants have ghettoized themselves in ‘parallel societies’. In this view, migrants withdraw into the social niches of their lifeworlds while ostentatiously displaying their religious and ethnic affiliation. These culturalist approaches believe that this self-confident display of cultural otherness vis-à-vis the norms and conventions of mainstream society can be interpreted as retraditionalization and an expression of authoritative social pressure exercised by the community.

Parts of native mainstream society, so the argument runs, experiences this more and more self-confident migrant demeanor in public space, migrants’ ostentatious clinging to their cultural difference, and the insular lifestyle of migrant communities in urban neighborhoods as a tacit provocation. Mutual denigration between migrants and natives takes the final step toward classifying immigrants as cultural aliens. The proponents of this line of reasoning see such classifications culminating in the denigration of the alien other not just in varying degrees but – because of that otherness – categorically. The widespread reservations in mainstream society toward immigrants could quickly turn into a desire to ward off foreigners to protect one's ‘own culture’ or ‘home country’ from ‘cultural aliens’ – a desire that must not inevitably be associated with aggressive xenophobia or violent racism. Such a longing for ‘cultural self-assertion’ (cf. the ‘cultural backlash’ thesis by Inglehart and Norris 2016; see also Bornschier 2010 or the literature review by Hainmüller and Hopkins 2014), they maintain, is not only encountered in urban agglomerations where migrants have been living for decades but paradoxically also has considerable appeal in rural regions where unemployment is comparably low and migrant communities are non-existent. Media reports on events such as an influx of refugees, terrorist attacks, or violent assaults are thought to have a catalytic effect, and public commitments by political, media, economic, and cultural elites to a ‘cosmopolitan society’, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitan ideals can do little to change this.

According to this line of reasoning, migrants frequently lack the willingness to adapt culturally to mainstream society. This insufficient willingness to adapt sparks a longing for social closure and keeping with the familiar among the natives of the national container. At the same time, parts of native mainstream society have been seized by a sense of ‘cultural homelessness’ – a feeling that has been further reinforced by a policy of open borders. Ultimately, this fuels politico-social currents that mobilize a sense of national belonging, revitalize traditional notions of order (‘homeland’), and spark a yearning for a place where the familiarity of the local acts as a bulwark against excessive demands that infringe on the national container from the outside. That which is imagined as one's own and distinguishes ‘the nation’ or ‘the people’ from the others, or so the proponents of the culturalist model claim, serves as an anchor for one's identity that nourishes the popularity of neonationalism.

2.2. Interpretation 2: competition for the same goods in the national container

In contrast to culturalist patterns of explanation, the second pattern of interpretation seeks to understand the appeal of nationalism by moving socio-economic factors to the center of attention. The proponents of this position believe that the allure of this new nationalism can only be grasped from a perspective that focuses on the profound transitions of the economic and social order over the past three decades (globalization losers thesis). In their view, the crux of the matter is that this new nationalism extends far beyond groups that share a nationalist-conservative ideology and is perceived as a politico-social option by those parts of the population specifically that view themselves as competing with foreigners for the same goods in the national container, or at least are concerned that they might have to do so in the future. The ones most strongly inclined toward nationalism, they claim, are particularly those who are threatened by poverty and those who are left behind.

The proponents of this position make the argument that the new in this new nationalism does not primarily feed on a longing for a culturally, let alone ethnically, homogenous community. Rather, they interpret this new nationalism as a nationalism for socio-economic self-defense that seeks to limit legitimate competition for much-desired resources, privileges, life chances, and rights of participation to the country's ‘own’ citizens. In doubt, the prosperity container should be fenced in and vigorously defended against others competing for the same goods. In this understanding, national citizenship is to serve as an exclusionary mechanism of closure in order to provide opportunities for citizens and deny them, either to varying degrees or absolutely, to non-citizens. Social opportunities are to be monopolized nationally by linking access to economic opportunities and legal access to the welfare state to the criterion of citizenship.

Socio-economic explanations center on social conflict over economic opportunities and chances provided by the welfare state. Pivotal is the assumption that distributive conflicts in the national container are not waged with those ‘at the top’, for instance, to secure a different, fairer distribution of life chances between those ‘at the top’ and those ‘at the bottom’. Rather, these conflicts are directed against foreigners and immigrants, hence toward those ‘below’ and those ‘outside’. What we see from this angle is an emerging element in this new nationalism of an undeclared ‘struggle in the market’ (Weber 1978: 731), beginning in the lower middle class, involving even those in a secure position, and extending to those at risk and those left behind. In short, this struggle has seized all those who have become socially vulnerable, feel vulnerable, or are concerned that, in the future, their own children and grandchildren will have difficulty or be unable to achieve the prosperity that they themselves have achieved. According to this perspective, this struggle over the same goods and status positions, aimed at segmentary social separation, can now be encountered among the social center even in hitherto protected tiers of the status hierarchy, such as the core workforce, who still has a good, stable income, in some cases even a comfortable cushion of assets, but who are in sight of those on the precarious margins of the work society.

2.3. Interpretation 3: criticism of elites and the crisis of political representation

Finally, in addition to cultural and socio-economic explanations, socio-political reasons have been offered to provide a more comprehensive explanation of the rise of neonationalism. This explanation argues that the political order of Western democracies and their leaders have been gripped by a manifest credibility crisis over the last decades. A variety of reasons are given for this. It is argued, for instance, that we have been witnessing a turn to neoliberal ideology and practice that spans political camps and has led to a languishing of the political programs of social-democratic, left-liberal/green, and center-right conservative parties and rendered them largely interchangeable. This line of reasoning also points to the departure of the political left from the classical social question as its leading political issue in general and from the ‘worker question’ in particular and a one-sided turn toward issues of cultural identity and diversity (minority rights, identity politics). Didier Eribon (2013) has argued particularly forcefully for a link between the rise of the Front National in France and the political left's oblivion to class and the simultaneous erosion of collective representation of the classes populaires.

The political order has been shown to be ridden with manifest problems of representation in regard to those threatened by poverty and those left behind in particular. Lea Elsässer and Armin Schäfer (2016), for instance, have demonstrated for Germany that political decision-making is highly selective in its pronounced responsiveness to high-income groups at the expense of low-income populations. Socially disproportionate political participation begins with civic engagement and voter turnout. It continues with the social composition of parliaments. And it ends with political decisions being much more frequently attuned to the expectations of the wealthy and the educated than to those of financially and educationally deprived groups. The lively social-scientific debate on a democratic deficit in the European Union is a further clear sign that the crisis of democratic representation is not limited to the national level.

It is undisputed that the new nationalism is a politico-social phenomenon that cannot be equated with an ethnic nationalism existing in a niche. Its appeal derives from anything but a consistent political ideology based on a coherent worldview. What is striking is the extent to which it finds acceptance via traditional national-conservative cultural circles that propagate an outdated notion of the family, polemicize against gender equity (‘genderism’), and reject the legal equality of same-sex couples. This new nationalism even resonates to a remarkable degree with large parts of the population that have so far shown little sympathy for right-wing extremist worldviews or the identity myths and notions of community glorified by national-conservative ideologies. It even resonates with populations in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods who once voted for social-democratic or left-wing political parties or have long since abstained from going to the polls at all (Wodak 2015). How can one explain the wide appeal of this new nationalism that has unfolded beyond the boundaries of the worlds of those who subscribe to right-wing ideologies and national-conservative convictions?

3. Inconsistencies in these models of explanation

These brief sketches of attempts to explain the rise of neonationalism refer to different sets of problems. A closer look reveals numerous inconsistencies. The ‘foreign infiltration’ thesis (Überfremdung) interprets neonationalism as a cultural countermovement against immigration. A key problem of this thesis is that it remains unclear why and under what conditions foreigners are perceived to be a ‘cultural threat’; remarkably so even in places where there are no foreigners. It also remains unclear why that which is imagined to be one's own has such an appeal in a transnationalizing, globalizing world. This is all more true if we consider that the shared essence of the ‘native culture’ is much more a collective ‘belief in common ethnicity’ (Weber 1978: 389) than an actually lived practice that is inherited through generations (Eriksen 2010). It is further unclear under what conditions a national belief in common ethnicity is also collectively shared across heterogenous milieus and class positions and how this belief is supposed to have an integrative effect. Such a belief in common ethnicity is expressed in the idea that there exists a national ‘leading culture’ (Leitkultur) that is incompatible with the segmentary modes of sociation among immigrants. Less significant are intellectuals or advocates that provide a plausible account of such a ‘leading culture’. More important are seemingly peripheral symbols or instances in people's normal everyday lives that lay the groundwork for and activate the belief in a national ‘leading culture’ (see Billig 1995 on ‘banal nationalism’).

The culturalist model of explanation rests on a specific normative conception of social integration according to which successful integration requires that migrants migrants ‘adapt’ to mainstream society's cultural practices and notions of order. It is typical of this conception of integration to block out the existing value conflicts over competing normative conceptions of integration that exist even within mainstream society, for instance, value conflicts between cultural-pluralistic (right to cultural diversity), cultural-authoritative (‘leading culture’), and essentialist-ethnocentric conceptions of integration (Kraemer 2008). The culturalist explanatory model obviously builds on the normative assumption of a more or less homogenous (national) cultural system of values. This assumption, however, conflicts with the social cultural changes that the social sciences have described for decades now in terms of the pluralization and individualization of lifestyles. It collides with a pluralism of norms that is no longer capable of prescribing a binding conception of what constitutes a ‘good life’. Ultimately, the culturalist model assumes societal agreement on commonly shared ‘values’ that extends far beyond recognizing constitutionally guaranteed basic rights. What is more, this explanatory model ignores socio-economic and socio-structural change. Such change, however, represents at the very least the backdrop to the rise of neonationalism. What is ultimately neglected is the perceived or actual competition for economic opportunities and chances provided by the welfare state in a transnationalizing world.

Socio-economic explanations appear to be a plausible account especially in (former) ‘Continental welfare states’ in which the promise of integration was rooted in the idea that everyone is able to partake in economic and social progress by participating in the workforce and climb the social ladder via educational attainment. In the meantime, this promise of integration has morphed into an implicit threat of exclusion once one's own job skills are no longer marketable and one's ability to perform fails to keep up with increasing expectations in the market. Even the most positive news about economic success in export markets and labor market data should not obscure the fact that people's expectations have shifted, particularly in economically successful societies. What was still a widespread expectation in the 1980s, namely, that people's individual life chances and that of their children would continuously improve as long as they were to work for a living and engage in lifelong learning, has given way to fears that, in the best case, they might be able to protect the life chances they have achieved, while they – and particularly the following generation – might not be able to sustain these living standard (Bude 2014). Against the backdrop of such expectations, it seems fair to assume that it is not just actual fear of social decline but a perceived concern for status loss and a devaluation of one's own lifetime achievements that sows the seed of resentment toward outside competitors.

Despite some plausibility, the ‘competition-for-the-same-goods’ thesis has its limits. What it neglects is that neonationalism is not only fueled by feared or experienced social decline. The main aspect that it fails to explain is why neonationalist patterns of interpretation by no means appeal only to ‘modernization losers’ but also to the socially secure (whether objectively and subjectively) or even the wealthy. Neonationalism seems to be more than a rebellion of left-behinds against an unfettered transnational market capitalism; and it also appears to be more than the response of a middle class unsettled by status anxiety. Most obviously, the new nationalism is a rallying point also for those who dislike foreigners, seek to wall themselves off, and protect a nationally justified belief in common ethnicity against those who hold other beliefs in regard to nationalism or ethnicity, paired with a pronounced estrangement from a liberal-urban establishment in politics, media, and the cultural sector. There is much reason to believe that we are witnessing a heterogeneous movement of the dissatisfied that appeals not only to the vulnerable and insecure but to the materially secure and well-to-do as well. Koen Damhuis (2017) has shown for the Netherlands, for instance, that the votes for Geert Wilders also came from those of secure status who stated that they were not ‘getting their fair share’, whereas the wealthy were bothered about having to pay taxes not only for poor nationals but now for migrants as well. Lastly, the ‘crisis-of-representation’ thesis neglects that neonationalism is by no means solely a social movement from below that is challenging an ‘out-of-touch’ elite in political parties, parliaments, and governments. It further remains unclear why political parties on the left that are not part of the political establishment fail to benefit from this dissatisfaction, and why it is first and foremost neonationalist parties that are attracting an increasing following.

These and other inconsistencies of the individual models of explanation call for closer scrutiny. I cannot go into more detail here but would like to remark that cultural, socio-economic, and socio-political factors can mutually influence or reinforce one another. For instance, we can expect that the greater the perceived pressure of competition in the national container, the more pronounced the aversion toward those who are culturally ‘negatively classified’ (Neckel and Sutterlüty 2008). Conversely, we can assume that the more stable people's occupational career, the more they are at ease with cultural diversity in their everyday lives. All three patterns of explanation invariably point to an interpretive dispute over the legitimacy of different socio-political strategies to contain the new nationalism. Culturalist explanations generally expect that immigrants must socio-culturally ‘integrate’ themselves into the host society; and if they fail to do so, the latter must erect a reliable boundary maintenance regime to contain ‘fear of estrangement’ (Entfremdungsängste) among the natives. Migrants are seen to have an obligation to meet this expectation. Socio-economic explanations, by contrast, are invoked to divert attention away from cultural differences toward economic and social problems in the host society. From heightened competition for the same goods, they draw the conclusion that the national institutions of the welfare state must be strengthened to the benefit of those socially at risk and those left behind. And, lastly, socio-political models of explanation suggest that the established political parties offer credible policies to close the yawning gap in the representation of the lower end of the social spectrum. It is obvious that all three interpretations start from conflicting normative conceptions of integration in addressing the question of what constitutes a successful social order. In the first case, integration is to be ensured via cultural assimilation, in the second case via socio-economic inclusion, and in the third case via political participation.

4. The symbolic economy of neonationalism

All three models of explanation – fear of ‘foreign infiltration’, fear of status loss and social decline, as well as criticism of the political establishment being ‘out of touch’ – come with specific problems. For this reason, I will discuss an alternative model in the following that avoids the culturalist, socio-economic, and socio-political reductionisms outlined above. Since the 1980s, markets have been successively disembedded from nation states, businesses have increasingly become transnational, political institutions more European, and education systems more international (Held et al. 1999). These processes have been associated with a substantial increase in the frequency and scope of job-related or private mobility across national borders (Mau and Büttner 2010; Recchi 2015). In contrast to this development, the institutional order underlying social welfare has remained limited to the national container. The transnational opening up of economic, political, and cultural orders has put increasing pressure on the nationally segmented welfare state. At the same time, new processes of social appreciation and depreciation are upheaving the traditional symbolic order within the national container. This transnational opening is shifting the valences of the different types of ‘capital’ that the inhabitants of the national container societies possess.

Bourdieu (1986) developed his theory of social capital in a perceived social space that still resembled the national container. Yet understanding the symbolic appreciation and depreciation of different types of capital over the last three decades requires unpacking this capital theory from its national container. The Europeanization and transnationalization of social spaces involves processes of appreciation and depreciation of economic, cultural, and social capital that Bourdieu did not really pay much attention to because of his fixation on national social space, in this case French society. What needs to be discussed in the following is how the valences of the three types of capital shifts once the formerly closed nation state open up to an external environment. Bourdieu's typology of capital also makes it possible to avoid a culturalist interpretation of experiences of cultural alienness that ‘right-wing populism’ exploits in favor of relating these experiences themselves to processes of transnationalization and the symbolic revaluation of capital that they entail.

More recently, in political sociology, Bourdieu's field theory has not only been applied to national social spaces but has also been used for the analysis of transnationalization processes. Numerous authors have further developed Bourdieu's field theory in order to investigate, in particular, the contradictory emergence of inter- and transnational ‘fields of power’ in relation to fields of power restricted to the boundaries of nation states (see Adler-Nissen 2011; Bigo 2011; Bigo and Madsen 2011; Cohen 2018; Kauppi 2018; Sapiro 2018). In contrast to essentialist and neorealist International Relation approaches as well as common assumptions about the ‘globalization of the world’, transnational practices and rivalries of professionals (governance, law, bureaucracy, security) as well as political and ‘cosmopolitan’ agents are analyzed in order to investigate the unequal accumulation and legitimacy of symbolic power in emerging (european) fields of power beyond nation states (Kauppi 2013; Georgakakis and Rowell 2013; Kauppi and Madsen 2013; Adler-Nissen 2013; Vaudez 2015). In the following, I would not like to focus on the symbolic practices and power relations of professionals and elites in transnational fields. Instead, I will discuss the question to what extent – in the process of transnationalizing social orders – the economic, cultural and social capitals are symbolically devalued that the ordinary inhabitants of the national container societies possess. Bigo and Madsen (2011: 220) have noticed that ‘strategies of internationalization most often correspond with national social hierarchies to the extent that such strategies are aiming for revalorization of the capitals of a national but cosmopolitan elite as a way of reproducing itself’. I take up this consideration and also assume with Bourdieu (1996: vii) that in each national field a symbolic conflict can be identified ‘between modernists, who take the position of the international, and traditionalists, who play for protectionist closure and the maintenance of national tradition’.

4.1. Transnationalization of money and wealth opportunities

As is well known, Bourdieu subsumed various types of monetary, capital, and other assets under the umbrella term of ‘economic capital’. In modern societies, and in those with a capitalist market economy in particular, economic assets have always been a key resource in the struggle for social distinction. Since the 1970s, we have been witnessing a discernible appreciation of the two most mobile forms of economic capital, namely, monetary capital and assets (asset price inflation). This appreciation owes itself not only to the emergence of transnational markets for industrial and consumer goods but also to the simultaneous emergence of new markets for equity investment and private assets that, in the wake of deregulated financial markets, have created greater opportunities for accumulating wealth. First of all, appreciation of economic capital means no more than that market and investment opportunities become increasingly detached from the realm of the nation state. Although money has always been the spatially most mobile form of economic capital, this mobility has been steadily enhanced through extensive political deregulation and the establishment of free-trade zones. This includes the reduction of trade barriers and the opening up of economies that were once closed to foreign investment and goods by establishing free-trade zones such as the European Economic Area (EEA in 1992), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA in 1994), or the ASEAN China Free Trade Agreement (in 2010). Just as significant has been the deregulation of financial markets and the financial industry since the 1990s as well as the massive tax competition between industrial countries to attract investments, which has additionally fueled competition for business locations. All this taken together has substantially expanded the investment opportunities for owners of assets and monetary capital as well as for the institutional investors managing them, that is, investment and equity funds (Harrington 2016). This expansion pertains not only to the social-spatial but also the temporal dimension. For instance, the average turnover rate of shares of listed companies has become considerably shorter. Financialization research (Epstein 2005) has interpreted this acceleration of the yield-driven investment cycle as a tendency toward absolving part-time business owners from having to shoulder entrepreneurial risks.

There is a further aspect that we need to consider to also understand the symbolic appreciation of economic capital to its full extent. That aspect is that money is more than an exclusive ticket granting access to opportunities for consumption, investment, or speculation in transnational markets. Money invariably acts as an effective, at times finely graduated means of directing behavior, which is used not only by actors in the economic domain. Monetary payments are granted or cut with the intention of influencing the decisions of organizations (and private households), for the most part regardless of whether these organizations or individuals have any proximity to business or not.

In regard to the question pursued here of the enhanced value of economic capital, we must take one more aspect into consideration. Money has become a key symbol for social distinction (for the USA, see Lamont 1992) – perhaps more so today than ever before, especially compared to tangible property rights. In his Philosophy of Money (2004), Georg Simmel called attention early on to the fact that money is much more than just a neutral means of exchange and calculation. He argued that particularly its cultural significance should not be underestimated. And it is true today more than ever that those who possess money – or have it at their disposal via their creditworthiness – are free to do as they please, within the limits of their budgets, at least compared to those who have little or no money at all. Via their sheer power to purchase, money owners can distinguish themselves and signal their status. By donating money, they can pursue community, charitable, or political purposes. And, above all, owners of monetary capital can use payments to control working processes (e.g. in businesses). Those endowed with monetary wealth face a wide spectrum of opportunities for directing the behavior of those actors who are dependent on monetary payments or loans. The former can ‘motivate’ the latter to actions that they would be unlikely to pursue on their own, be it in consumer, capital, or labor markets. They can discipline others by granting or refusing payments. And, of course, money invariably provides a highly flexible means of achieving not only instrumental but also value-oriented, traditional, or emotional purposes (Kraemer 2015). Those with little money or none at all are excluded from moneýs tremendous potential. They are faced with the wealthy and the owners of capital, who can use their economic capital in the transnationally opened up spaces for whatever purposes they please.

4.2. Transnationalization of cultural capital

Not only the value of economic capital has shifted but also that of ‘cultural capital’ (Bourdieu) by which the inhabitants of national container societies could distinguish themselves from other inhabitants of their container. According to Bourdieu's theory of social space, ‘cultural capital’ is a central means of social distinction. If we apply this understanding of cultural capital to the process of a successive transnationalization of socio-spatial orders that we have been discussing here, it follows that traditional, nationally inherited cultural and educational capital is becoming increasingly less significant for social distinction. Of course, it would be an exaggeration to speak of a general devaluation of institutionalized cultural capital (educational certificates). What is happening is rather that the opportunities for distinction that educational capital provides are changing as national container societies are opening up to the outside.

Graduation certificates from international business, medical, or law schools are symbolically appreciated relative to those acquired in national educational institutions. The new digital economy also comes with status loss for some in terms of the value of their education and their position in the workforce. Such status decline begins mentally with those who can no longer be sure that their educational certificates and job skills will continue to be marketable in the future. It continues with those who experience sudden interruptions in their work history in the wake of business closures. And it ends with those that cannot keep up with the others in the race for lifelong learning.

The findings of the research group around Jürgen Gerhards (Gerhards et al. 2017) point in a similar direction. Gerhards and his team analyzed the increasing significance of ‘transnational linguistic capital’ for cross-border economic, academic, and political cooperation and in relation to the class structure. They further examined which new opportunities the cross-European recognition of academic degrees opens up for the families of physicians, for instance, to pass on educational attainment from parents to [their] children. When their children's grades in school are insufficient or the hurdles of an entrance exam are too high for admission to study medicine within the national container's education system, they enable their children to leave it and pay for access to medical school abroad, for example, at Semmelweis University in Budapest (Gerhards and Németh 2015). These findings illustrate how processes of Europeanization and globalization alter the chances of reproducing institutionalized educational capital.

Adding to this is another development. Not only are the institutionalized educational certificates symbolically appreciated that have been acquired at domestic schools which teach in a foreign language or at an ‘excellent’ university of high international reputation (Münch 2014); incorporated cultural capital, as described by Bourdieu, also continues to make a social difference. It is, however, not so much national cultural capital, as Bourdieu still assumed; it is rather connoisseurship of ‘national culture’, which has for decades been symbolically associated with the works of, for example, Honoré de Balzac, Goethe, or Arnold Schönberg. Opening up national container societies has also rendered incorporated cultural capital transnational. What this means is not only that Europeanization and globalization are opening up regionally or nationally segmented markets or education systems but that this is also changing the forms of cultural distinction. To distinguish oneself from ‘ordinary’ container inhabitants, one is increasingly required to speak at least one foreign language, master the informal conventions and communication styles beyond the national container of origin, internalize an open, cosmopolitan mindset toward the ‘otherness’ of people from other cultural backgrounds (Vertovec and Cohen 2002; Bühlmann et al. 2013; Gerhards et al. 2017), and, of course, be internationally mobile in education and working life (see Munk 2009; Waters and Brooks 2010).

Using the German business elite as an example, Michael Hartmann (2009) and Markus Pohlmann (2009) have demonstrated empirically the pronounced robustness of national recruitment paths for access to top management positions of listed industrial companies. Yet they also show that, nowadays, experience abroad during higher education and over the course of one's career can substantially improve one's national career prospects, for instance, with DAX companies. Referring to selected institutions of the European institutions, Hussein Kassim et al. (2013) and Didier Georgakakis (2013) have presented evidence of a close connection between stays abroad and access to elite positions outside the national container. Similar trends can be observed in the scientific system. An example underlining this is Angela Graf's study (2015) of Nobel and Leibnitz Prize winners as well as the presidents of large research organizations in Germany (e.g. DFG, Max Planck Institutes). Her study shows that members of this scientific elite were significantly more frequently abroad during university education if they belonged to a younger age cohort. However, these findings from the field of business, politics, and science should not mislead us into assuming that there has emerged a transnational class (Sklair 2001) or educational elite with a homogenous ‘global habitus’ (for a critical discussion, see Schneickert 2013). If we take neo-institutionalist approaches to educational research into consideration (Meyer 2007, 2010), for instance, we can explain why the educational careers and lifeworlds even of those highly educated individuals who have acquired transnational educational capital in institutionalized (certificates) or incorporated form have not necessarily become transnational. In this perspective, transnational educational qualifications are highly relevant as a means of social distinction, regardless of whether these transnational credentials ‘competencies’ are actually in demand in labor markets to the same degree. Today, transnational cultural capital apparently makes a social difference when filling particularly lucrative positions within the national container of origin. Recently, Christian Schneickert (2018) showed in an empirical comparative study that also ‘globalizing political and economic elites’ are strongly embedded in specific historic and socio-cultural structures of ‘national fields of power’ which influence the valorization or devaluation of their ‘transnational capital’.

Other studies have shown that especially those who have cross-border educational and occupational experience widely share ‘cosmopolitan’ notions of community (see Mau et al. 2008; Igarashi and Saito 2014; Rössel and Schroedter 2015) that no longer focus exclusively on a specific national social space but rather include either the global economy, global society, global scientific community, or global culture as their symbolic horizon of reference. However, the openness toward ‘foreign cultures’ that is typical of a cosmopolitan mindset should not be equated with the utopian spirit of a post-national ‘world citizen’. It is not inconceivable that cosmopolitism can combine with a national chauvinism of affluence and a strong sovereign territorial model (Bigo 2011: 253; Johansen 2015), but above all with the desire for social distinction from the ‘backwardness’ of container inhabitants who still harbor a national mindset. The pursuit of such distinction is rewarded symbolically among the middle and upper classes since it is there that the desire for social distinction, status preservation, and upward mobility is especially pronounced (Schimank et al. 2014; Mau 2015)

Bourdieu (1984) assumed for the French society of the 1970s that the bipolar axis of distinction ran along the difference between high-culture versus popular lifestyles. However, recent studies have shown that this traditional axis of distinction has been superimposed by a new one defined by the poles ‘cosmopolitan’ (anywheres) and ‘local’ (somewheres) (Teney et al. 2014; Rössel and Schroedter 2015; Zürn and Wilde 2016; Goodhart 2017).¹ This change in the order of distinction becomes manifest in manifold processes of symbolic appreciation and depreciation of cultural lifestyles. The ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle that is symbolically appreciated is one that is no longer defined by dealing with national educational goods. Crucial is rather the habitual ability to deal with cultural or ethnic diversity in a globalizing world in ways that are ‘free of prejudice’, to cross borders between countries not only spatially but above all also symbolically, and to approach the cultural conventions of the various world regions with an open mindset (Weenink 2008; Meuleman and Savage 2013; Igarashi and Saito 2014).

The ‘cosmopolitan’ lifestyle draws its symbolic superiority from generating curiosity toward unfamiliar people and cultures. At the same time, this lifestyle seeks to keep a distance to the ‘parochial’ everyday culture of the inhabitants of the national container. From the cosmopolitan perspective, encounters with these people would be like associating with the impure. ‘Cosmopolitans’ are quick to disparage everyday practices – whether they intend such symbolic delegitimization or not – that exhibit an element of awkwardness when faced with the tacit cultural expectations of foreigners. In short, the transnationalization of cultural capital implies that the national cultural container – usually tied to a language community – loses its validity as the decisive frame of reference for symbolic distinctions. Under these circumstances, it is hardly surprising that those inhabitants of the national container that command no transnational cultural capital feel slighted or even declassed not just materially but above all symbolically.

4.3. Transnationalization of social capital

‘Social capital’, too, has become more transnational. Transnational communication and cooperation implies that new kinds of ‘social circles’ (Simmel 2009: 363ff.) beyond national-segmentary differentiations take shape and cross paths. Of course, the functional elites in business, politics, and culture who have accumulated prestigious transnational educational and cultural capital remain dependent on social networks in their national container of origin. These are, however, increasingly complemented and expanded through professional relationships and other social networks in transnational businesses, supranational institutions, or NGOs. Social capital that extends beyond the national container of origin promises greater opportunities for social distinction than social circles that are limited to a closed, segmented national container (Krastev 2017).

This is why social capital tied to nationally, culturally, or ethnically closed types of community is depreciated and along with it those segmentary social circles whose exclusive frame of reference is a region or place. Even so, access to transnational social circles does not depend alone on whether one has acquired internationally recognized educational certificates and the linguistic capital required to do so. Just as significant is whether transnational capital has been incorporated. This includes, for instance, the habitual ability to handle cultural difference, foreignness, and otherness with virtuosity and, above all, intercultural ‘competence’ in transnational businesses and organizations (science, politics, NGOs) that recruit their staff from across the segmentary borders of national container societies (diversity management). Against this backdrop it seems fair to assume that transnational cultural capital can easily be converted into social capital: Multilingualism facilitates communication with actors outside the national container who speak a different language. And even more importantly, multilingualism increases the frequency and intensity of informal exchange beyond the boundaries of the container.

5. Conclusion: transnationalization and renationalization of social spaces

This article has discussed the rise of neonationalism against the backdrop of the successive transnational opening up of national container societies. Over the last three decades, a narrative has become dominant among the elites in business, politics, the cultural sector, and science that can be outlined in terms of the key words ‘postnationalism’, ‘cosmopolitanism’, and ‘Europe without borders’. With this narrative, these elites are departing from the traditional narratives of the national container societies not only economically and politically but also culturally. This narrative is rejected by those container inhabitants who lack any relevant transnational capital and fear that their capital, which is tied to the national container, is being depreciated. They pit a national narrative against the elites’ transnational one. This narrative is anything but a homogeneous whole. It is neither consistent nor coherent. Nor is it the product of pioneers innovating our worldview. The neonational narrative is diffuse and frequently emerges from the lower end of the social stratum.

Depending on how the national political order is constituted, the neonational narrative is now being adopted by parts of the elite of the politico-institutional center, yet first and foremost by the national-conservative counter-elites and their counterparts extending far into the ranks of the far right. Whether parts of the established elite or counter-elites, in both cases they amplify the echo of neonational narratives. All heterogeneity notwithstanding, the common ground of these narratives is the longing for a segmentary container community that is based on the idea of reviving the nation state as community of beneficiaries that is closed against the outside. In this line of thought, ‘Germany for the Germans’, ‘France for the French’, or ‘Austria for the Austrians’ is less a commitment to a culturally or ethnically segregated community of common origin rather than a ‘belief in common ethnicity’ (Weber) that appeals particularly to those container inhabitants who perceive transnational markets and institutions as depreciating their capital or who fear that they are falling behind economically and politically. As I have shown above, another moment is crucial: What weighs particularly heavily in addition to these concerns is the symbolic depreciation of their lifestyles that comes with this new transnational narrative of the economic, political, and cultural elites. Against this backdrop, the new nationalism is fueled by a sense of cultural disqualification or ‘demonization’ (Jones 2012).

This article has proposed drawing on Bourdieu's theory of capital to explain the rise of neonationalism a bit more precisely. Doing so, however, required going beyond Bourdieu's implicit equation of social space with a national container society. I have shown that transnationalization entails manifold processes of appreciation and depreciation. These processes refer to new arenas of distinction that extend beyond the nationally closed container. The key aspect is that the normative conflicts over the value of different types of capital have changed in the process of transnationalization of national container societies. In the wake of the transnationalization of social orders emerge manifold symbolic struggles over appreciation and depreciation that can no longer be analyzed within the framework of a theory of nationally segmented social spaces.

There are several reasons why a theory of capital applied to transnational social spaces provides a useful framework for the analysis of neonationalism: First, a transnationally expanded theory of capital offers the opportunity to recognize neonationalism as being more than ‘right-wing populist’ simplification or even delusion (criticism of orthodox normativism). The second benefit is that such a theory avoids the type of one-sided reasoning typical of economistic, culturalist, or politics-centered explanations (antireductionism). Third, a theory of capital directs special attention to the symbolic economy of neonationalism. This symbolic economy is much more than a politico-social response to distributional conflicts over resources or positions with immigrants and foreigners in the national container. It also involves animating neonationalist currents by means of symbolic conflicts over the value of cultural capital that unfold along the lines of the distinction of cosmopolitan versus national-local (criticism of scientistic-realist explanations). Fourth, a theory of capital can furthermore clarify that ‘transnationalization’ is not a linear process of eroding the social orders of national containers. It is much more accurately conceived as a process of mutual enhancement of the opening and closure of national spaces (interplay between trans- and renationalization). Fifth and finally, the example of contemporary neonationalism can be used to demonstrate that – contrary to Niklas Luhmann's assumptions – ‘segmentary differentiation’ is not a preceding phase in the evolution of social differentiation but continues to coexist alongside other (i.e. stratificatory and functional) forms of differentiation (contemporaneity).

Against the backdrop of the transnational opening of national container societies the symbolic appreciation and depreciation of different capitals have been described in an ideal-typic manner. However, it is unlikely that the social processes of valorization and devaluation will be similar in all European societies. Rather, it can be assumed that symbolic valorization and devaluation in national social fields vary across Europe depending on the specific historical-institutional, socio-political and socio-cultural cleavages and conflicts. The specific impacts of ‘globalization’ and the transnational opening of national container societies are relational. They depend on the concrete field dynamics and social structures on the national level. Schneickert (2018) used the example of ‘globalizing’ political and economic elites to show that valorization and devaluation of (trans-)national capitals are influenced by various social conditions of national fields of power. Accordingly, it would be concluded that the symbolic economy of neo-nationalism must be examined more closely in international comparative perspective. In this context, the theoretical and empirical results of the comparative ‘political economy of populism’ would be taken into account more systematically. As Manow et al. (2018) have pointed out, national welfare models and labor market regimes in Europe are affected differently by economic globalization and migration. Against this background, it can be assumed that, depending on the specific national field conditions, not only the social patterns of symbolic valorization and devaluation are different. Also, the perception of social problems in general as well as neo-nationalistic attitudes in particular can assume different national patterns and trajectories. It is an empirically open research question whether and how far varieties or ‘worlds’ of symbolic valorizations and devaluations can be identified in north and south, eastern and western European societies.

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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

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Klaus Kraemer

Klaus Kraemer is full professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Graz, Austria. His main areas of research are economic sociology, sociology of money, and sociology of modern capitalism.

Notes

1 See Gouldner (1957/1958), who introduced the distinction ‘cosmopolitans’/‘locals’ to sociology early on to examine the different types of loyalties of actors in organizations.