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Right now, they’re not telling that story very well. In interviews with me, Director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth, Vice-President of Research at Freedom House Arch Puddington and world-renowned liberal philosopher Martha Nussbaum all suggested that much of the world is slipping through an international leadership gap. On the whole, national political figures are failing to inspire their citizens to embrace cultural inclusion, global justice and international cooperation. Worse still, many political leaders aren’t even trying.

That can change, and needs to. While exclusionary and confrontational nationalist movements increasingly threaten global peace, prosperity and justice, the rise of nationalist sentiments don’t have to signal the fall of the world.

To identify the common foundation that underpins far-flung exclusionary movements, it’s helpful to use the term nationalism broadly. As Roth puts it, “often nationalism is paired with something else.”

Sometimes that something else, like sectarian strife, is actually the core concern, even as sects drape their religious attachments with a flag.

“If you look at both (Bashar) Assad and (Nouri al-) Maliki … in each case there’s an effort to foment sectarian tensions as a way of solidifying their control to rally behind them as a leader because of this external threat,” Roth says.

Elsewhere, religious identity and national identity are more closely bound up in one another. In Burma, Buddhist extremists exhibit a clear “nationalist appeal,” says Roth, and religion and nationalism “work very much in tandem.”