# The Great Backlash

1 Opinion May 31, 2014 Project-Syndicate ![Nouriel Roubini](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/nroubini.jpg?itok=R6F5VNmo) By Nouriel Roubini > Today’s backlash against trade and globalization should be viewed in the context of what, as we know from experience, could come next.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, policymakers’ success in preventing the Great Recession from turning into Great Depression II held in check demands for protectionist and inward-looking measures. But now the backlash against globalization – and the freer movement of goods, services, capital, labor, and technology that came with it – has arrived.

This new nationalism takes different economic forms: trade barriers, asset protection, reaction against foreign direct investment, policies favoring domestic workers and firms, anti-immigration measures, state capitalism, and resource nationalism. In the political realm, populist, anti-globalization, anti-immigration, and in some cases outright racist and anti-Semitic parties are on the rise.

These forces loath the alphabet soup of supra-national governance institutions – the EU, the UN, the WTO, and the IMF, among others – that globalization requires. Even the Internet, the epitome of globalization for the past two decades, is at risk of being balkanized as more authoritarian countries – including China, Iran, Turkey, and Russia – seek to restrict access to social media and crack down on free expression.

Read full article as published in [Project Syndicate](http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/nouriel-roubini-likens-the-rise-of-nationalism-today-to-that-of-authoritarian-regimes-during-the-great-depression)

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*Nouriel Roubini is a Professor of Economics and International Business and the Robert Stansky Research Faculty Fellow.*## More Opinions from Nouriel Roubini

- [Oil Shocks Are No Longer So Shocking.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/index%2ephp/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/oil-shocks-are-no-longer-so-shocking)
- [Four Scenarios for the Iran War.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/index%2ephp/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/four-scenarios-iran-war)
- [U.S. Escalation Is the Most Likely Scenario in Iran.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/index%2ephp/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/us-escalation-most-likely-scenario-iran)
- [Kevin Warsh Is in for a Rude Awakening.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/index%2ephp/experience-stern/faculty-research/opinion/kevin-warsh-rude-awakening)
- [The Coming Crypto Apocalypse.](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/index%2ephp/experience-stern/faculty-research/coming-crypto-apocalypse)