noun
mass nounThe belief that a particular country, society, or institution is in a state of significant and possibly irreversible decline.
‘polls showed a rise in declinism after Nixon's devaluation of the dollar’- ‘The essential problem of declinism was that it sought to explain Britain's undoubted relative decline in terms of British failure.’
- ‘Declinism tends to produce overly cautious behavior that could undercut our influence.’
- ‘The authors noted that declinism in America had a long history going back to late seventeenth century Puritans.’
- ‘It is important to prevent the errors of both declinism and triumphalism.’
- ‘Declinism is conditionally pessimistic.’
- ‘Cycles of declinism tell us more about psychology than about underlying shifts in power resources.’
- ‘Polls showed a rise in declinism after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957.’
- ‘Declinism is historically deterministic: nations naturally, and perhaps inevitably, evolve through phases of rise, expansion, and decline.’
- ‘The heart of economic patriotism is rejecting declinism and the doctrine of defeat.’
- ‘A third wave of declinism took place in the 1980s.’
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