The National Interest - by Philip Cunliffe (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Globalization is over. With US president Donald Trump pursuing an 'America First' agenda in trade and foreign policy, everyone now recognises the urgency of defending their own country's national interest. But what is the national interest and why did it disappear from the political agenda? Will Trump restore American national interests, or will he betray them? How might we know the difference?

The National Interest answers these questions. It explains how and why globalist political leaders and bureaucrats abandoned the national interest over the past thirty years. Even today, many of our elites still sneer at the concept as an anachronism in an age of global environmental collapse and 'polycrisis'. But without it, there can be no political representation, and without representation there can be no democratic accountability. The national interest can be revived as part of a strategy of nation-building and national rebirth. This book makes the case for such a revival, heralding a new era of democratic renewal and international cooperation.

Review Quotes

"Cunliffe argues valiantly and incisively for a concept long scorned. A revived concept of the national interest will help recover social solidarity, democratic accountability and the basis for pursuing the common good."
--Patrick Porter, University of Birmingham

"Cunliffe's book provides a brilliant rehabilitation of the concept of national interest, establishing it as a founding stone of a post-globalist democratic theory and practice and making it the essential point of departure for a rigorous theory of the state-in-society that leaves the shallows of the neoliberal worldview behind."
--Wolfgang Streeck, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne

"Rejecting the anti-politics of both managerial technocrats and populist demagogues, Philip Cunliffe makes a convincing argument that in today's world genuine democracy is impossible without national sovereignty."
--Michael Lind, author of The New Class War: Saving Democracy from the Managerial Elite

"A vital account of how academics and politicians have collaborated in the hollowing out of the idea of the nation state - in favour of sub-national identities and supranational institutions - and how it might be revived."
--David Goodhart, author of The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics

About the Author

Philip Cunliffe is Associate Professor of International Relations at the Department of Risk and Disaster Reduction, University College London. He has authored seven books including Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democracy After Brexit (2023) co-written with George Hoare, Lee Jones and Peter Ramsay. He has taught international relations at the university level for 14 years. He contributes regularly to public debate on questions of national politics and international order and can be found @thephilippics on X.