South Africa must choose between democratic resilience and populist isolationism to navigate a rising global tide and define its standing in an increasingly fractured world. Conservatism is back. Not the quiet, establishment conservatism of the post-Cold War era, but a louder, more populist, and more nationalist strain that has swept across continents.
From Washington to Warsaw, Delhi to Brasília, conservative movements are reshaping politics, redrawing alliances and challenging a liberal democratic order that once seemed unshakeable. This isn’t just a story about the singular personalities of Donald Trump or Viktor Orbán. It is a deeper shift in the global mood – one driven by economic insecurity, cultural backlash, migration anxieties and a growing distrust of political elites.
And South Africa, though often focused inward on its own crises, is not immune to these currents. The 2008 financial crisis remains the “Big Bang” of this era. It shattered faith in globalisation, leaving working-class communities across the US and Europe feeling abandoned as collateral damage.
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Automation, outsourcing and stagnant wages compounded a sense that the system was rigged. Conservatives seized this moment of economic dislocation, promising protectionism and national revival. Whether through the “America First” doctrine or the watershed moment of Brexit, the message was clear: the nation comes first.
But bread-and-butter issues tell only half the story. A potent cultural backlash has followed rapid social transformations involving gender, identity and multiculturalism. In communities that feel their traditions are under siege, this resistance has turned political.
Orbán’s “illiberal democracy” in Hungary, India’s Hindu nationalism under the BJP and Erdoğan’s Islamist conservatism in Turkey all tap into the same vein: a defence of identity against perceived liberal overreach. Migration and security fears have further sharpened these edges. Europe’s refugee crisis and America’s southern border debates have given conservative parties a powerful rallying cry.
From Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, the new conservative archetype is the “outsider” promising to smash a failed establishment. The manifestations of this surge are diverse, but interconnected. The United States Republican Party has undergone a fundamental transformation, leaning into a culturally combative and protectionist populism. In Europe, beyond Brexit, the rise of Giorgia Meloni in Italy and the Vox party in Spain shows that the nationalist tide is a permanent feature of the landscape, not a passing phase.
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