Between the Lines: Marvin Suesse

When did you first come up with the idea for the book?

The book is really a product of my teaching experience here at Trinity. When I started out at Trinity in 2017 I was asked to teach a class in the History of Economic Thought. This is a subject that investigates why economists think the way they do, and how this has changed over the past centuries. When preparing my classes, I noticed that there was an awful lot of material explaining the origin of sometimes quite abstract economic theories, but there was relatively little work examining economic ideas that have been popular outside of academic circles. Nationalist ideas on the economy are a great example of this: We are all familiar with people such as Donald Trump or Nigel Farage, but few people look seriously at the source of their economic ideas. In my view, that is a mistake – because these kinds of ideas, for better or worse, often end up being politically extremely important. This is what I set out to do in this book: to uncover why nationalists think the way they do about economic affairs, and what the implications of this thinking are. The core assumption is that once we understand nationalist thinking on the economy, it becomes easier to predict and adapt to the challenges that are posed by nationalist policy making.

Did you start out with the intention of writing a book about a particular topic, or did a book begin to make sense as you were researching?

The basic structure of the book – the topics covered and their sequence - was quite clear to me from the start. I knew I wanted this to be a global history that did not just look at thinkers and events central to the western intellectual canon. Rather I wanted the book to investigate how ideas spread around the globe and were adapted to changing local contexts. As I continued researching and writing, I started to see more and more of these connections between individual cases where nationalists in different countries influenced each other. These are some of the most exciting parts of the book and these only developed fully during the research process.

What are the book’s main ideas?

The main idea is that nationalists do in fact think about economic issues, and that their thinking, while often confused, does follow a certain structure and logic. I argue that the main objectives nationalist policy makers pursue are, firstly, a desire for economic isolation and, secondly, a desire for economic development. The main problem for nationalists is that these aims are often difficult to reconcile. It turns out that you cannot be both isolated and prosperous at the same time. This places nationalists in a bit of a bind: How can they chase two goals at the same time? In the book I investigate different strategies nationalists have pursued to blunt the tension inherent in this dilemma. Sometimes nationalists have tried to pursue a ‘pick-and-mix’ approach to globalisation. That means they have tried to engage with international trade, foreign technologies and even encourage skilled immigration if it would ensure national prosperity. Of course, they simultaneously have tried to place this engagement with the world economy under strict boundaries to preserve what they see as the core of national sovereignty. There is, I think, an important lesson in this: Nationalists are not generally opposed to international trade or globalisation, but they will often try and manage these forces and try and use them to their advantage.

What did writing a book allow you to do that wouldn’t have been possible in another medium eg. journal article?

The book has an important comparative dimension because it investigates the parallels between different historical cases and time periods. This is a great way to tease out structural similarities in the factors that determine the occurrence of economic nationalism. For example, how important is inter-ethnic conflict in giving rise to these kinds of ideologies? What is the effect of financial crises in spurring nationalists into action? We can only answer these questions once we compare different cases of inter-ethnic conflict or various financial crises over time and space. These kinds of exercises, which necessitate a certain amount of historical context, are difficult to accomplish in a short journal article.

How did you decide which publisher to place the book with?

The book is really written with a non-specialist and interdisciplinary audience in mind. I therefore wanted a publisher with the potential to reach a broad audience, as well as a publisher with a good standing in various disciplinary fields: history, political science and economics. The team at Cambridge University Press has an excellent track record in these fields – and they were also keen to keep the price of the book at a reasonable level.

How long did it take to write?

I lodged the book proposal with Cambridge in early 2019 and started writing soon after that. The pandemic turned out to be a real challenge – not only because I suddenly found myself having to write at home in the presence of my children, who were quite uninterested in the intricacies of the writing process... Getting hold of primary and secondary sources was also made much more difficult as travel to libraries abroad was suddenly foreclosed. I will be honest and say that I did not make the initial manuscript submission deadline I had agreed with the Press! Fortunately, my editor was quite flexible and I was able to submit the final version in April 2022. Much of the remainder of the year was taken up working with the referees, typesetters and proofreaders. This was a really enjoyable process, seeing how my somewhat haphazardly laid-out MS Word manuscript was slowly transformed into something that now looks and feels like a proper book!

Did you ever experience any moments of writer’s block? What did you do to overcome this?

There were certainly moments when I did not know exactly what I wanted to write, although I don't know whether I would call these 'writer's block'. To me, these moments were usually signs that I had to go back to the literature and to the primary sources, reread these and reflect on their message. In many cases, this meant that I needed to read more 'dissenting' literature to gain alternative perspectives on a topic. Once I had gone back to the literature, I found brainstorming sessions really useful, as well as drawing up detailed outlines of sections and sub-sections. I think I eventually discarded the vast majority of these plans, but drawing them up nevertheless proved to be really useful in order to organise and structure my thinking on a topic.

What advice would you give someone thinking about writing a book?

I think it's important to remember that not every section of the book needs to be set in stone at the moment you start writing the book. You can go back over drafts of early chapters and sections many times and edit these. Overall, I edited and rewrote the first two chapters I wrote in 2019 at least three times over the subsequent years. That's perfectly normal! There is no need for perfection at the stage of the first or second draft – this is something that you approach gradually over time.

Related to this is a plea for a certain amount of ruthlessness in cutting material that distracts from the main message. I spent a large chunk of the months before the final submission date cutting text from individual sections, or even entire sections. This is hard to do, because of all the precious time already spent in researching and writing these sections. But in the end, it's important to get your message across, and this involves reflecting carefully on the material to include. I often decided to include material that offers fresh and contrasting perspectives, while omitting material that merely repeated points made earlier.

If you could go back in time and give yourself one piece of advice before you started writing, what would that be?

I would hope to assess the time needed for such a project more realistically. Although I was eventually able to submit the manuscript after the deadline had passed, it would have been even better to budget my time more carefully from the start. Writing a book is a terribly time-intensive activity: planning, researching, writing, editing and marketing. And this process is not a linear one, because you will often need to go back and revisit a previous step. It is therefore really important to be honest about the time you need for such an enterprise. Once you do that, writing can be a really enjoyable and rewarding experience.