We’re taking today’s newsletter to highlight an in-depth article by Roland Benedikter on the changing global order that we published earlier this week.
In recent years, there’s been a vigorous debate about the state of globalization. There’s no doubt that the decades following the end of the Cold War ushered in a kind of golden age for globalization—a period of deep economic integration in what became known as the liberal international order.
But since the mid-2010s, many observers have pointed to growing geopolitical competition and nationalist impulses as evidence that the international order is deglobalizing. Others say deglobalization is a myth, pointing to the persistence of globalized supply chains and international trade.
Roland posits a different idea. Rather than simply a reversal of globalization, the international order is undergoing a complex restructuring—what he dubs “reglobalization.”
Reglobalization can be seen in three main shifts:
Changes in the mechanisms of globalization. The “unholy alliance” of neoliberal capitalism and leftist cosmopolitanism that led to deeper economic integration are both increasingly being challenged: neoliberal capitalism by the “turn toward green” in response to the climate crisis, and leftist cosmopolitanism by renationalization.
Changes in the global order. Autocratic emerging powers are increasingly challenging the Western democracies that dominated the liberal international order, while nonalignment has spread throughout the Global South. The result is at least two and perhaps three globalizations that are now dependent on two or three visions of global order that are opposed to each other, or at least differentiated.
Changes in the relation between globalization and the global order. Globalization through economic interdependency was for decades directly related to a global order that was protected by U.S. military securitization in pursuit of political stabilization, creating a kind of world-encompassing political culture. That political culture is now being challenged by the changes mentioned above, as well as the United States’ turn inward, China’s rise and the New Space Race.
The combination of these shifts has left the world in a state of liminality—the old order is gone, but a new order hasn’t yet replaced it.