Nationalist

Holds that international bodies never face voters, so sovereignty and citizens' interests must come first in the ranking.

What this position argues

Nationalism on this axis is not a refusal to cooperate; it is a position on the terms and the ranking of cooperation. International agreements, once entered into, are difficult to unwind through domestic politics, and the bodies that make those decisions cannot be replaced by voters. The argument is therefore that cooperation should take the form of agreement between states rather than delegation of sovereignty, and that the benefit to a country's own citizens should be weighed first. A second argument: the gains from openness may rise on average while the costs land on particular industries and regions, which makes the judgment of the people bearing those costs a legitimate one.

Core claims

• Decision-makers in international bodies cannot be replaced by voters, so delegating sovereignty warrants a strict standard.
• The gains from openness are calculated as an average, while the costs concentrate in particular industries and regions.
• Domestic capacity should be maintained in areas tied directly to crisis resilience: food, energy, critical components.
• The first standard for policy should be the safety and living conditions of a country's own citizens.

Characteristic policies

• Stronger domestic scrutiny of treaty signature and ratification
• Protection of strategic industries and relocation of supply chains onshore or to allied countries
• Managing immigration levels and requirements against domestic capacity
• A strict national-interest test for foreign aid and military intervention

Common criticisms

• Protective measures raise domestic prices and invite retaliation, lowering overall welfare.
• On problems that cannot be solved without cooperation, such as climate and pandemics, the response is delayed.
• If "citizens first" is drawn politically, the boundary can widen into exclusion of particular groups.
• Insulated supply chains look stable but cost more and slow the pace of technological improvement.

Frequent misreadings

• It is often read as identical to ethnic hostility or exclusionism. The mainstream argument is about sovereignty and where decision-making authority sits, and the two questions are distinct.
• It is often read as opposition to all international cooperation. Most of this position objects to cooperation that takes the form of delegated sovereignty rather than to cooperation itself.

Read these next

Reading one pole on its own shows you half the axis. It is worth reading the opposing position and the axis overview alongside it.

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