The Second Wave: The Collapse of Communism and 9/11

This chapter examines the second wave of nativist populism in the post-war era, which grew out of resentment in Western Europe against workers from the Eastern regions of the continent flocking over the former Iron Curtain after the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. A spike within this wave occurred in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. The nature of the nationalism introduced in the second wave was somewhat different to that of the previously discussed agrarian populism or the anti-tax neo-liberal populism in the early 1970s. Rather than primarily referring to the social-economic situation of the ordinary people the emphasis moved over to a socio-cultural notion of our people. Although xenophobia and ethno-nationalism was surely a significant part of the populist message from the outset that sort of rhetoric rose much more clearly to the forefront in the second wave.