Markets, “Communities” and Nostalgia

Abstract

At least since the fi nancial crisis of 2007/2008, deep socioeconomic turmoil has been all around us in Europe and other parts of the Global North. As our futures seem increasingly precarious, contemporary circumstances challenge Fukuyama’s proclamation (1992) of not very long ago that the collapse of communism had brought about an irreversible and crisis-free victory of free-market capitalism and democracy that were tantamount to an “end of history”. Two decades later, we are facing heightened local and global inequalities, environmental catastrophes, and newly hardening cultural boundaries. Concurrently, emerging markets leave established superpowers anxious about their future standing, while nation-states generally fi nd themselves at the mercy of global fi nancial markets and their auxiliary institutions. As signifi cantly, the economic realities of the twenty-fi rst century are met by prominent local, regional, national and transnational counterreactions, many of which revolve around questions of belonging and the entitlements group membership bestows.