Question

  "The Covid pandemic has starkly revealed that globalisation in its contemporary form has reached its limits and needs to be radically reconsidered." Discuss providing an explanation in five hundred to a thousand words along with some references

Answer 1

"The Covid pandemic has starkly revealed that globalisation in its contemporary form has reached its limits and needs to be radically reconsidered."

Globalization has been driven by modern technology, from jet planes and satellites to the Internet, as well as by policies that opened up markets to trade and investment. Both stability and instability have promoted it, the former by enabling business and tourism, and the latter by fueling flows of migrants and refugees. For the most part, governments viewed globalization as a net benefit and were generally content to let it run its course.

But globalization, as is clear from its various forms, can be destructive as well as constructive, and in recent years, a growing number of governments and people around the world have come to view it as a net risk. When it comes to climate change, pandemics, and terrorism – all exacerbated by globalization – it is not hard to see why. But in other areas, the increased opposition to globalization is more complicated.

The new coronavirus is shaping up to be an enormous stress test for globalization. As critical supply chains break down, and nations hoard medical supplies and rush to limit travel, the crisis is forcing a major reevaluation of the interconnected global economy. Not only has globalization allowed for the rapid spread of contagious disease but it has fostered deep interdependence between firms and nations that makes them more vulnerable to unexpected shocks. Now, firms and nations alike are discovering just how vulnerable they are.

Even before COVID-19, globalisation was already under significant threat from rising nationalism forcing governments and businesses to define new constructs and priorities . This response to the conflicting forces of globalisation and nationalism has given rise to the term “slowbalisation”, coined by The Economist to describe declines in trade, multinational profits, and foreign investment and leading to arguments that we have now passed ‘peak globalisation’. The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have introduced additional fear and uncertainty among populations, resulting in new behaviours and beliefs . People are becoming more suspicious and less accepting of foreign things and all this is occurring on a background of increasing anarchy in global governance . The economic interdependence and multilateral norms or rules that globalisation emphasised over the past several decades, creating the global supply chains that contributed to the economic growth many low- and middle-income countries experienced since the 1990s, is facing formidable and existential threats. Although arguments that the globalisation era is over, or at least on the wane, may be premature, the economic impacts of the pandemic are rattling its inherent assumptions with little clear indication of what may follow in its (eventually) subsiding wake. In the meanwhile, the economic interdependence that characterized recent globalisation is becoming unglued, and with it the policy assumptions of many governments worldwide and the (already) fragile livelihoods of billions of people.

The critics are right in one sense: globalization brings problems as well as benefits. Societies need to become more resilient. Workers require access to education and training throughout their lives, so they are ready for the jobs that emerge as new technologies or foreign competition eliminate their current jobs. Societies need to be better prepared to cope with inevitable pandemics or extreme weather events caused by climate change.

Globalization is not a problem for governments to solve; it is a reality to be managed. To embrace wholesale deglobalization is to choose a false cure – and one much worse than the disease.