With Regard To Globalization, The Liberal Order, And Deglobalization – OpEd

Interconnectedness is a crucial aspect of globalization that is highlighted by the majority of definitions. Actors interact more, and socioeconomic processes that were formerly more restricted to more precisely defined geographic boundaries, like the state, become increasingly entangled across larger territories. While there are significant differences in the degree to which regions within a state, states, and international regions are interconnected with the rest of the world, this interconnectivity is present in some form practically everywhere in the world today.

Interconnection has many facets. Consider the globalization of the economy. The integration of national economies into the global economy through trade, direct foreign investment (by corporations and multinationals), short-term capital flows, international flows of workers and humanity in general, and flows of technology are all included, despite the fact that this is only one aspect of globalization.

 Globalization, however, goes beyond economics. For instance, from a medical perspective, globalization is, among other things, the spread of germs, especially harmful viruses that cause diseases like AIDS, COVID-19, influenza, and yellow fever. While this is happening, social theorists focus on how communities and socio-political space are being reimagined geographically. According to their interpretation, globalization dissociates political groups from geographical bounds, opening the door to the idea of global citizenship.

A liberal International order and globalization do not always coexist. Of course, there was little connection between what O’Rourke considers to be the first global century and any of such order. The Concert of Europe began as an effort to stifle internal revolutionary forces and lessen the pressures they put on Europe’s monarchy of the time, among other things. European nations tightened their colonial hold on Asia and Africa at the same time. On the other hand, since the end of the Second World War, the liberal international order has grown along with globalization.

The liberal international order, which free trade is a cornerstone of, has promoted economic globalization, particularly among its friends in the west. Two cherished convictions have served as the foundation for this. First, everyone benefits from free commerce in products and services. Market is meant to do a significant amount of magic. Numerous academic works have been written about how to control the world market, but after the Cold War, global politics took a different turn. Neo-liberal economic policies were supported globally by the so-called “Washington Consensus.” The Global Compact, the Millennium Development Goals, and the Sustainable Development Goals are only a few examples of attempts to restrain such an agenda that, for the most part, lack legal force and are open to many interpretations.

The second idea is that interstate peace is a result of economic interdependence. War is becoming more and more expensive due to growing economic interdependence; as Montesquieu initially proposed, this renders war less and less consistent with means-ends analysis. The “commercial peace” theory has been examined from a wide range of perspectives in IR. These two ideas served as the foundation for an unparalleled economic globalization, particularly in commerce and banking.

Globalization’s evolutionary trends and the liberal international order as a whole will have significant effects on a peaceful shift in global politics. Despite all of its flaws, globalization and the liberal international order allowed for the peaceful emergence of new powers. This holds true for all G20 middle-income nations, but especially for China and, to a lesser extent, India and Brazil. By providing platforms to multinational firms and outsourcing labour, particularly technical workers, globalization put them in a position to produce and market goods and services more affordably. 

China has established the supply chains for the bulk of consumer goods around the world because to its inexpensive labour and aggressive trade policies. Increasing the size of its economy to four times what it was in 1989. This is an unique development because most past rising powers had to struggle to achieve a comparable level of prominence, and many of them failed in the process. Their reluctance to start system-changing wars has been largely attributed to economic discrimination.

The forces of deglobalization have been stronger and stronger from the late 2003s. Even some sociologists and economists are now claiming that the scales have tipped more in favour of deglobalization than globalization. The recent rise of deglobalization movements highlights the local negative externalities of inadequately designed networked structures at the global scale, including elevated risk of contagion in financial downturns, high social complexity derived from immigration shocks, and increasing inequality and social polarization. 

Global network interdependencies provide chances for cultural and economic development, but they also create pathways for unresolved disputes and poor design choices to spread throughout social systems. We examine how the density and centralization of interdependencies affect failure propagation on networks. We demonstrate that when the number of connections reaches a system-dependent threshold number, the probability of failure behaves similarly in both too dispersed and centralized systems. When designing policies aimed at enhancing or lowering the interconnection of social systems, the degree of interdependencies is important and must be taken into account.

Finally, The liberal international order, a rules-based system that reflects the values of economic interdependence, democracy, human rights, and multilateralism, has served as the framework for globalization in the modern age. It is debatable if there is a connection between global mobility and the liberal international order. Although the LIO’s fundamental tenets were never fully embraced by all states, the process of delocalization is also accelerating.

New political forces have formed after the global financial crisis of 2008–2009 to oppose the globalization consensus.

The response to the European refugee problem, and the emergence of populist leaders in the United States, Brazil, and India are all signs of delocalization, which is fueled by mistrust of open borders, free trade, and free markets. The relative trajectories of these processes have wide-ranging effects on the international system, affecting everything from trade and global health to migration policies and human rights.

 The 2018 Carnegie Junior Fellows Conference addressed pressing global issues that, over the next 20 to 30 years, will necessitate answers. Instead than producing a type of efficiency where everyone benefits, hyperglobalization has caused a great deal of upheaval. The conference’s main three issues—climate change, great power competition exacerbated by artificial intelligence (AI), and where economic, political, and social issues were also discussed—were emblematic of globalization.

 How can we overcome these challenges? In fact, the major three issues are emphasised; they are big, complicated, affect many interconnected systems, are global in scope, and will need worldwide answers. As a result, the conference discussed these issues from the perspectives of international collaboration and global governance. Additionally, the conference brought together aspiring policymakers who will unavoidably face these difficulties throughout their lives because these concerns are projected to become increasingly crucial in the ensuing decades.

Yarjan Lehri is a student at the University of Balochistan studying international relations. He is an independent researcher and analyst. His field of expertise is international law and world order, and he is interested in case studies of great powers.