Mark Leonard

Over the past week, Britain has been shaken by a political earthquake. The previously marginal UK Independence Party (UKIP) burst onto center stage to capture almost a quarter of the votes in local elections around the country, threatening to upset the stable two-party system that has existed for the last century. Nigel Farage ‑ the Claret-quaffing, cigar-smoking former city trader who leads the party ‑ breathed life into abstract ideas of sovereignty by highlighting the inability of European Union member states to control their borders. He predicted “hordes” of Bulgarian and Romanian citizens legally migrating to the UK. The mainstream parties are struggling to respond.

UKIP is just a small part of a broader phenomenon spreading across the developed world that resembles a political backlash against globalization and interdependence.

A recent study showed that policy issues are secondary to potential UKIP supporters. (Only 7 percent of UKIP supporters say Europe is the single most important issue for them.) In focus groups, UKIP supporters reel off a litany of complaints, both imagined and real, about the cultural and social state of Britain. For example: Your school is not allowed to hold a nativity play; you cannot fly the flag of Saint George; you cannot call Christmas “Christmas” anymore; you cannot be promoted in the police force unless you are a minority; you cannot wear an England team shirt on the bus; you won’t get social housing unless you’re an immigrant; you cannot even speak up about these things, because you’ll be labeled a racist. “All of these examples,” says Lord Ashcroft, the study’s author, “make the point that the mainstream political parties are so in thrall to the prevailing culture of political correctness that they have ceased to represent the silent majority.”

It seems that UKIP’s support comes from a very similar constituency as the Tea Party in the United States, Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV in the Netherlands, Joerg Haider’s party in Austria, and Viktor Orban’s Fidesz in Hungary. Sunder Katwala of the think tank British Future described UKIP to me as “a cultural movement of angry white men over the age of 55.”

In essence, support for UKIP, like other populist parties in the West, is a cry by an empowered majority afraid of losing its position as a result of the economic, demographic and cultural changes of globalization. As power and wealth spread from west to east, an increasing number of people fear their children’s lives will be worse than theirs; and that the cultural makeup of their countries will change.

In many of the same French squares and streets that were occupied in the general strikes of 1968, a new generation has been re-inventing the art of protest for the age of Twitter. Their focus has been opposing a law that would legalize gay marriage, which is expected to pass a final legislative hurdle on Tuesday. Although the protests may be misdirected, they are a symptom of the crisis this generation faces in influencing its government and economy in France.

For a generation that is staring at a “lost decade” of economic stagnation and joblessness, this protest seems like a form of escapism to observers. With economic and political spheres surrendered to global markets and German politicians, the protesters may be trying to reclaim ownership of the cultural sphere by seizing on the gay marriage proposal. This desire for individuality within the euro zone was, in fact, the same effort that led the French government to introduce the proposal in the first place.

This predominantly Catholic revolution without leaders has spawned a new organization – le Printemps Français, or the French Spring – that compares the fight against gay marriage to the Arab Spring uprisings that began in 2010.

BERLIN ‑ Of the most dangerous sentences a politician can utter, one must be, “There is no alternative.” Or, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel says, the situation is alternativlos.

A group of German political activists who gathered this weekend to launch an anti-euro party is betting that Merkel’s refusal to countenance change will provide fertile ground for opposition. Although most people in Berlin think Merkel will be re-elected in the general election in September, a growing number of political forces are lining up to define an alternative to her policies in Europe.

Merkel has managed to contain the threat to austerity represented by international leaders such as François Hollande, Mario Monti and Mariano Rajoy. At home, in spite of growing hostility to the euro among the public, none of the mainstream parties dissent from Merkel’s dedication to the euro. Merkel’s more dangerous opponents come from outside the established political terrain.

For her first overseas trip as secretary of state, Hillary Clinton went to Asia. For his first trip, John Kerry chose Europe. His choice is partly a result of his strong connections across the Atlantic and partly a move against the frustrations U.S. diplomats have faced in places like Beijing. Kerry’s choice also speaks to a remarkable narrowing of the Atlantic, which culminated in Obama’s championing of a transatlantic free-trade agreement in his State of the Union address this month.

Only 10 years ago, Europe and the U.S. were meant to be so different that not only did they have different views, but they viewed each other as if from different planets. Politically and militarily, the author Robert Kagan claimed, Americans were from Mars and Europeans from Venus. American commentators used to routinely denounce European economies for being closed, backward-looking and missing the wave of the future. Germany was still seen as the sick man of Europe, and it was the subject of ridicule for the way it was wedded to an industrial economy in a post-industrial age. What a difference a decade can make.

As a European in Washington, I have spent much of the past few weeks listening to pillars of the American foreign policy and economic establishments. I am struck by how many of today’s U.S. debates mirror those in Europe. These two giant economies are no longer as different as they once were.

Children grow up learning that politics is the “art of persuasion.” Ideas, arguments and facts can clash through debate and lead to policy choices. Although Barack Obama’s prodigious oratorical skills recall politicians of centuries past, the purpose of his rhetoric is different. His goal is not to change minds but to identify all the people who already agree with him and painstakingly craft a governing majority out of their atomized preferences.

With his State of the Union address, President Obama combined the two most powerful tactics of modern politics – big speeches and big data – to spur political action.

President Bill Clinton’s aides once talked about a “permanent campaign,” but that seems laconic compared to Obama’s fusion of campaigning and governing. The group Organizing for America held  a conference call with Obama’s supporters after the speech, and Obama set  off on a three-city tour to North Carolina, Georgia and Illinois, all states that have Republican governors. The point of this flanking campaign is not to change minds but to mobilize voters.

Britain is at a fork in the road with a choice to make about what role it will play in the 21st century. Yet, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron’s long-awaited speech about Europe is a miscalculation that will leave everyone frustrated.

With the speech, British euro-skeptics are denied an immediate referendum on EU membership, and pro-Europeans in Britain will lose their voice in the debate about Europe’s future while their country’s energy is wasted on renegotiating existing powers. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will have to deal with a quest for special treatment rather than have a reliable British partner at a time of uncertainty. Worst of all, Cameron’s promise to go for a cosmetic renegotiation followed by a campaign to stay in the EU is designed to obscure rather than resolve the fundamental dilemma facing his compatriots – a choice between two radically different British futures.

On the one hand, the euro-skeptics, who have held Cameron hostage in parliamentary votes on Europe, have a clear agenda. They have set out a modern argument that is very different from the blimpish isolationism of past decades. In the place of old arguments about European super-states destroying British sovereignty, they have an entirely new narrative of a Britain “tethered to the corpse” of the euro zone. They claim that the single market ties British business in red tape; the Customs Union holds Britain hostage to the protectionist lobbies of all member states; and the free movement of people is flooding its labor market with immigrants. The EU seems a fossilized relic of the 20th century in a new digital world. What matters to the skeptics, in the words of conservative columnist Matthew d’Ancona for GQ, is “not post-colonial reach or the ability to fight alongside America in military interventions, but the real freedom to trade globally.” He concludes: “What is so bad about being a new Singapore off the shore of Europe?”

The disparate prospects of each continent have little in common. To the extent that they can be linked by a single theme in 2013, however, it is the idea of the unraveling of the global economy and the political integration that supported it. After two decades of globalization, this year will see each of the big political theaters re-erecting barriers and focusing more on domestic repairs than on global expansion. The unraveling has its roots in longer-term trends, but it is set to step up in the next year.

There has been a remarkable stabilization within the euro zone since European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s intervention in the summer of 2012. But even as the euro zone integrates, the politics and economics of the wider European Union are likely to diverge. In practice, the measures toward an integrated banking union, increased parliamentary accountability and more incentives for reform could go hand in hand with the de facto economic and political disintegration of the EU. Economically, as Sebastian Dullien argues in a paper, “Why the euro crisis threatens the EU single market,” there is a significant risk of a gradual unraveling of the EU’s single-market system. A full euro zone breakup would shatter the euro, while a great leap toward political union could see shrinkage of the single market, as countries such as the United Kingdom withdraw from the heart of Europe.

Even muddling through the crisis seems likely to diminish the depth of the single market. In recent months, banks in the euro zone have withdrawn from trans-border business. Even poorly-managed German companies are paying significantly less interest on capital than well-managed Spanish companies. These new barriers between euro zone members will lead to a renewed focus on domestic markets. For Europe, this means less competition, less growth and higher prices for consumers.

Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to show that nothing has changed. Israel will defend its citizens just as it did before the Arab Spring. The language of Israel’s politicians, the brutal efficiency of its bombing campaign and the asymmetrical death count all echo Israel’s campaigns in the past. But the political dynamics surrounding this assault could not be more different.

The American president – rather than spending his time in the White House Situation Room – is flying around Asia planning his “pivot” from the Middle East. Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, rather than sealing the border, sent his prime minister to Gaza for a display of solidarity. And regional leaders from Qatar to Tunisia and Turkey are putting themselves in the middle of the skirmish. But rather than responding to this changed environment with a creative diplomatic strategy, Israel’s government seems to be doubling down on tried and tested techniques.

On my last visit to Israel, I noted that officials speak about how their government in recent years has moved from making peace to “managing conflict.” They have built a wall to pen in potential terrorists, while launching periodic attacks to disrupt the military operations of Hamas and Hezbollah. (One official referred to these repeated attempts to defang Hamas as “cutting the grass.”) Every nation is entitled to defend itself. But unless violence is part of a political strategy, it rarely creates real security. The problem with these repeat military operations is that they create a growing pool of anti-Israel resentment in the neighborhood while eroding Israel’s international standing.

By a twist of fate, the world’s two most powerful countries will select their new leaders in the same week. On the surface, they are almost perfect mirrors of each other.

While the U.S. election promises a nail-biting finish, the results are likely to be predictable. In Beijing, the next leader – Xi Jinping – was ordained several years ago to be appointed General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party at the Party Congress this week.

In the economic realm, the two countries’ trajectories are at odds. While Washington is suffering from an austerity crisis, China is coming to grips with a crisis of affluence. In the U.S., as Thomas Byrne Edsdall argues in his book The Age of Austerity, “The two major political parties are enmeshed in a death struggle to protect the benefits and goods that flow to their respective bases, each attempting to expropriate the resources of the other.”

It was a blood bath. A methanol tanker crashed into a bus, killing 36 people and injuring more near the Chinese city of Xian on Aug. 26. Soon after the accident, a photograph appeared online of Yang Dacai, the local official in charge of road safety, smirking at the scene of the crash. The photo prompted a flood of Internet anger. The comments of netizens soon moved from the official’s demeanor to the value of the watch on his wrist. Bloggers managed to unearth pictures of Dacai wearing 11 different luxury watches, together worth many times his official salary. Last Friday, the Chinese media reported that Dacai had been sacked after an investigation into corruption.

Yang Dacai is just the latest focus of an electronic herd whose activism and anger appear in sharp contrast to the staid and controlled official politics in China. The regularity with which these scandals erupt helps explain why an opinion poll in China 18 months ago revealed that 70 percent of senior Chinese officials live in a state of “Internet terror.”

Over the last few years, officials at all levels of government in China have fallen prey to electronic vigilantes who have exposed corruption by looking at the value of officials’ possessions or the misdemeanors of their relatives. This is what makes the effect of the Internet on Chinese politics so paradoxical: It could seriously lengthen the life of China’s one-party state. In much the same way that the market has saved the country’s Communist Party, China’s state-controlled Internet could save its leadership.