Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira
Economia e Sociedade, 27 (3), 2018
Nationalism is the ideology of the formation and the development of nation-states. Nationalism was key to the development of the central countries that first industrialized, but it was even more important in the peripheral countries, so named because they were subjected to the modern imperialism of the former countries. Nationalism presupposes a common history and destiny; not necessarily a common ethnicity. When ethnicity defines nationalism, it ceases to be economic to be ethnic and, therefore, authoritarian and populist. Nationalism is associated with creative imagination and critical thinking. Developmentalism is the twin brother of economic nationalism, as it is the ideology of development geared toward industrialization that assumes a moderate state intervention in the economy and the defense of national interest in a world in which competition between nations is stronger than cooperation.
