| Description: |
Right-wing populism around the world engages not only in anti-cosmopolitan rhetoric, but wherever in power, it implements policies detrimental to cosmopolitan ideals, practices, and institutions. This chapter traces right-wing populisms’ anti-cosmopolitanism to their communal ethics, which form the centerpiece of their appeal. It further inquires into the rhetorical form and renewed attraction of communal ethics and finds them in a state that, captured by special interests, is in populists’ perception no longer capable to govern justly on behalf of and for the benefit of the people. Using the United States as its paradigmatic case, it shows, moreover, how the international business cosmopolitanism of the neoliberal era, which was first forged with American business elites in its vanguard, is ironically deeply implicated in generating its populist nemesis in the form of Republican party populism. The chapter concludes by raising questions about what sort of institutions can hold actors accountable for their local and translocal responsibilities such that future cosmopolitanisms avoid the shortcomings of global business cosmopolitanism. It finds those in more robust participatory democratic institutions that can safeguard against state capture. |