Description
Although the case-selection bias in constructivist IR literature towards liberal or "good" norms has been widely noted, the inverse notion of "bad" norms remains critically under-theorized, vaguely defined, and often essentialized. In order to understand what "bad" norms are and how they relate to ostensibly "good" ones, our project focuses on the global rise of nativism, a political logic aiming to restrict migration in order to prevent non-“native” peoples from ostensibly threatening the idealized homogeneity of the nation-state. This imaginary threat frames migrants as demographically and/or culturally "colonizing" the "native" peoples of host nation-states, as with the nefarious spread of so-called "replacement" discourse. Building off our ongoing work that adapts the "life cycle" model for historicizing the peculiar relationship between the "bad" norm of nativism and the "good" norms related to refugee protection, we extend this analysis by examining how nativism subverts from within anti-racist norms by coopting the keyword "diversity." We start in 1968 with the origins of the European New Right and the inauguration of a long-term, metapolitical strategy for countering the hegemony of the liberal international order. Next, we trace how this metapolitical strategy unfolded in the context of the protracted crises of globalization and potentially reached a tipping point circa 2014-2016. Finally, we reflect on how nativism as a "bad" normative process is shifting the boundaries of politically acceptable discourse in the west, considering how nativist political elite are acting as "bad" norm entrepreneurs.
