Liberalism: Once Nationalist, Now Internationalist
An outline describing my theory on the historical processes which caused liberalism, a concept once heavily associated with nationalist movements, to become internationalist.
It seems very strange now, but democratic liberalism was once heavily associated with nationalism. To be nationalist was to be fundamentally liberal, as this meant you saw the "nation," i.e., "the People," as the true font of political legitimacy and therefore meant the whole "nation," should have a say in the state. This Egalitarianism necessarily meant that hierarchical allegiances, which often held trans-national (cross ethnic) characteristics had to be subdued or totally erased.
The most obvious case of this was feudal monarchy, best epitomized by the Habsburg dynasty, who ruled territories composed of French, Germans, Czechs, Hungarians and Slavic subjects spread out piecemeal across Central and Eastern Europe. But the other major trans-national force, who also was a major supporter of monarchy in principle, was the Catholic Church in Western Europe and to a somewhat smaller extent the Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, this led to rampant anticlericalism where the notion of secularism came to be a bludgeon against the traditional powers and privileges of the Catholic Church. The Declaration of Rights and Man containing provisions for Freedom of Religion was as much an idealistic statement of personal freedom as it was a tool to strike against one of the most powerful anti-national forces in all of France.
Subordinating the Catholic Church to the French civil government was attempted, but ultimately the Revolutionaries sought the liquidation of the Catholic Church wholesale and even backslid on the ideal of religious freedom with the establishment of the state backed Cult of Reason. In Eastern Europe, this manifested itself with autocephaly and the establishment of new "national" churches such as the Church of Greece. The jurisdiction of a specific Church came to be much more heavily tied to a specific people and the borders of their state. The legacy of this shift is felt even in the 21st Century, with the question of the autocephaly of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as an undercurrent of the Second Donbass War.
In either case, the result was the same, the dissolution of trans-national bonds and the establishment of the nation or People as the Supreme Authority. Liberty was not an emancipatory force, but rather a constraining one. It existed to restrain powers which claimed to have authority which superseded that of the People. These would be manifested, particularly in Western Europe, as rights and freedoms. Freedom of religion, speech and assembly were championed by European liberals as tools to constrain the Throne and Alter and give preferential power to the People. Even today, in the remaining monarchies of Europe, the sovereigns have fewer rights than their erstwhile subjects. For a subject may publicly complain about the Crown's ministers, the Crown itself often cannot.
By the mid 20th Century, however, nationalism and liberalism had diverged from one another. While a nationalist could also be a liberal, the two concepts were no longer conflated. Part of this was the ultimate success of democratic liberalism in Europe. By the beginning of the Great War, most of the remaining monarchies of Europe had transformed themselves into popular monarchies who couched their power and authority as ultimately stemming from the "nation," the People. The newly established Kingdom of Italy and the German Empire were the poster children for this transformation. These states were the amalgamation of dozens of formerly independent states driven together who had at their head a monarch. But to achieve this preeminent position as head of state, these monarchs had to submit to the ignominy of a Constitution, fundamental limits to their power and authority. Popular monarchy was a public contract between the Sovereign and the People. The Monarchy could only truly exist if the People, the nation, consented to it.
A victim of it's own success, liberalism would begin to lose control of national feelings with the monarchs using them to bolster what remained of their own power and authority. Nationalism thusly came to be separated from liberalism culminating in the rise of fascism and socialist patriotism in the early 20th century. The ultimate defeat of fascism and particularly Nazi Germany with the full revelation of the Holocaust and other associated crimes, significantly stained the reputation of nationalism in the minds of liberals.
However, it would be the international nature of the Cold War which would wholesale shift liberalism into an internationalist school of thought. Due to chronic fears of communist subversion and geo-political concepts such as Domino Theory, liberals came to view all democracies as bound together in a broad anti-communist international order. Liberty, once a tool of constraint against the Throne and Alter, came to be seen as a marker of brotherhood and an end in of itself. Liberty was now fully universal, and liberalism fully international.
I’ve recently gotten a pet supply company (www.pettechworld.com) as a sponsor. If you want to support me, you can make an order through them for you basic pet needs. As a History in Story reader, you get an exclusive 10% off on your next purchase from PetTech World. Just use the code HISTORY10OFF at checkout on www.pettechworld.com. It's the perfect opportunity to upgrade your pet care game and show your furry friends how much you love them. The company is based in the USA, so shipping is only available there.