Global Politics: Beyond Gridlock In World Politics - by Thomas Hale

"The end is near, but we did it my way"

Can we manage the globalized world we have created? Every day seems to bring new evidence to the contrary. From the wars in the Middle East to nuclear tensions in East Asia, to an ongoing migration crisis, to the looming threats of pandemics and financial shocks, to the growing danger of climate change, our ability to meet global challenges is falling short.

In our 2013 book Gridlock, written with Kevin Young, we argued that these instances of multilateral breakdown were not just a string of bad news, but products of the same historical process. The “success” of the post-war order in building a managed form of globalization allowed interdependence to deepen. New countries joined the global economy, companies expanded transnationally, and once distant people and places found themselves increasingly—and, on average, beneficially—intertwined.

But the virtuous cycle between deepening interdependence and expanding global governance could not last because it set in motion trends (see Box 1) that ultimately undermined its effectiveness. Increasing multipolarity reflected the success of bringing millions out of poverty, but also increased the number and diversity of voices that had to agree on global issues. Deepening interdependence brought many benefits, but also generated harder, more complex problems, intermestic issues that penetrate deep into domestic affairs. As international organizations expanded to address these new challenges, many found themselves locked into sub-optimal policies and decision-making rules that could not adapt to changing circumstances. And this institutional inertia in turn led to a proliferation of new institutions and organizations, fragmenting many areas of world politics into a confusion of overlapping jurisdictions and redundancies. The result is gridlock.

Since we wrote Gridlock, the problem has arguably worsened. Most dramatically, there has been a sharp rise in nationalism and populism around the world. From Trump’s America to Brexit Britain, from Modi’s India to Xi’s China, from Erdogan’s Turkey to Duterte’s Philippines, national leaders are winning by promising to “take back control” and (re)assert their national power.

Though this trend has multiple causes and many local variations, we argue these nationalist leaders are not isolated cases, but in part products of a systemic trend we call self-reinforcing gridlock (figure 1). The logic is as follows: Gridlock weakens our ability to manage globalization and deal with global issues, which inflicts real harm on significant segments of the world population. Think of the failure of global financial regulation to stem the 2008-2009 crisis, or the failure to address adequately the current refugee crisis, for example. Exposed to the hard edge of globalization, populations naturally react against it, seeking to reassert national control. This creates the political conditions under which nationalist, populist leaders can succeed. But instead of calibrating nuanced and effective solutions, such leaders tend to reject global cooperation and openness altogether, often exacerbating the very problems that brought them to power in the first place. This rejectionist ideology deepens gridlock and begins the whole cycle anew.

Read more: Beyond Gridlock In World Politics