The Global and the Local: Resilience in a Changing World

Globalization has brought development and prosperity around the world, allowing industrialized countries to rely on their exports to increase their potential for growth. It has also helped developing nations diversify their economies and fight poverty. However, in its current form, globalization has exacerbated inequalities. Educated and highly skilled workers have enjoyed the benefits but demand for unskilled workers in industrialized economies has steadily declined because of skill-biased technological change, the offshoring of labor-intensive jobs, and the substitution of local production with cheaper imports from emerging markets. On the other hand, the economic fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may mark a defining moment for globalization in the 21st century. Russia’s unprovoked aggression has triggered a fundamental reassessment of economic relations and dependencies in our globalized economy. And in a post-invasion world, it has become increasingly indefensible to isolate trade from universal values such as respect for international law and human rights. It is still too early to say how this will play out, but authors see the emergence of three distinct shifts in global trade: from dependence to diversification, from efficiency to security, and from globalization to regionalization. These shifts have implications for Europe and the world. Also, domestic and international politics are notably challenged by complex transboundary problems in an era of intense global connectivity that include climate change, cyber terrorism, global migration flows, financial instability among others. Disruptions in one part of the world quickly move around the globe through highly integrated global networks. States are challenged to manage effects on citizens and political institutions, often muddling through with vulnerabilities evident across the layers of political life. Nonetheless, citizens, states and the global system are also resilient. The international order was briefly interrupted by the freezing of politics during the COVID-19 pandemic. But an important factor that explains this change is the global trend that, beyond national specificities, is defined by the rise in the international system of nationalism and of the extreme right. This rise is the outcome of a process of re-politicization and contestation of the norms and institutions of the international liberal order. Papers are welcome on any of these topics, with preference given to those having impact beyond one country.