Reverse Globalization: Exposition of New fault lines & Rifts in Global order.

With the invention of the steam engine in the 17th century, the world entered a new era with the Industrial Revolution as the engine of growth. With increased production in the next centuries, the world became more globalized. The advent of the internet in the late 1980s further “shrank the distance between places,” and in no time “the internet became the new Times Square.”

But in the past decade, the world has entered a reverse cycle of globalization. With increasing protectionism, trade wars, and reverse migration already prevalent across the world, COVID-19 in 2020 has only added fuel to the fire.

This essay will hence evaluate various aspects of reverse globalization, its effects on various sections, and the emerging global order that it is shaping.

Reverse Globalization: What is it?
Globalization is the cross-country flow of ideas, culture, and people. It is the integration and interconnectedness of various socio-economic and political systems. Reverse globalization thus happens when this uninterrupted flow is blocked, and ideas, goods, and people are rather treated as belonging to “silos” of a particular state, nation, or section.

The best example is that of the US-China trade war currently unfolding. Slapping of trade sanctions on goods, lawsuits on officials, and diplomatic warfare are its manifestations in various forms. But is this only a recent phenomenon?

Not exactly. Just after World War II, the world was expected to be a freer and more democratic place. Instead, the lust for territories and establishing hegemony pushed the world into a cold war – a reverse globalization of sorts.

Reverse globalization is thus a macro phenomenon having its effect on various socio-economic issues.

Emerging Fault Lines
The question today is why even such a phenomenon takes place?

The answer lies in the prevailing socio-economic-political conditions.

The world today is battling with poverty and unemployment at the same time. In fact, in countries like India, unemployment has been at a 45-year high. With more conservative governments coming into power in countries like the USA and Brazil, closing the borders becomes the natural and easiest option to battle unemployment.

Further, with a rising population, pressure on natural resources has been increasing. This has also fueled concerns on the sustainability models of various nations, thus prompting reverse globalization.

Many religious groups have been mounting pressure as clashes between more urban global values and traditional customary morality have increased. Cases of Charlie Hebdo in France, Sabrimala temple women entry movement in India, and blasphemy issues in Pakistan are a case in point.

Vote bank politics and regionalism have also aggravated grievances against migration due to globalization. This is manifested in the US-India H1B issue where the number of H1B visas to be issued was drastically reduced in 2019. Even intra-country, trains full of migrants from Gujarat to Bihar were common visuals last year.

In the economic arena, new fault lines have emerged due to excessive dependence on one nation. China today is the “factory of the world.” But as became apparent amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive dependence on one country does no good to anyone. As global value chains got stressed, many countries were left struggling for basic consumer goods.

Let us now turn towards the various manifestations of reverse globalization.

As globalization as a force weakens, it becomes more than apparent into crumbling multilateral institution systems including the UN. Countries are increasingly self-asserting themselves even against such institutions. This became clear when China refused to obey the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in favor of the Philippines regarding the South China Sea dispute.

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than showing global support at COVAX facility of WHO, countries are busy in “Vaccine Nationalism.” The USA has already bought millions of doses to be first given to its own citizens rather than the most vulnerable of the lot, reflecting an “America first” policy.

Globalization came at its peak when almost all nations across the world came forward to act as a unified form against climate change. The Paris Climate Agreement in 2015 was a result of it. But even the environment, which is a “global common,” has been affected by reverse globalization waves. Rather than the pledged $100 billion a year, less than 2% has materialized. The USA has left the Paris Agreement, and even climate change dismissed as a hoax by US president.

The wave of reverse globalization has even affected our households. The incomes have dwindled as people lose jobs. With reverse migration, state infrastructure is already loaded women who had got “a new-found freedom” in households are losing as fast as they got it, as “men return to take charge.”

In fact, the effects of this reverse globalization have had an impact on the global world order.

Changing World Order
Gunnar Myrdal in his classic book ‘Asian Drama’ had painted a very pessimistic picture of Asia in the 1960s. Asia belied all such expectations. As the cold war came to an end, the rise of Asia started in the 1990s.

Today, China riding high on the waves of globalization is threatening the unquestioned hegemony of the USA. From building military bases in the Indian Ocean to ‘aggressive posturing’ in the South China Sea, it aims to assert itself. This has only hardened the outlook of the USA for reverse globalization reflected in “Make America Great Again.”

What is then the way forward to accommodate such changes into our policies?

The key lies in strengthening multilateral institutions like the UN. The WTO has not been allowed to function since last year now. The need is to reform it and other such institutions like the UN Security Council to reflect the current global reality.

Backchannel diplomacy and track 1.5 dialogues need to be strengthened. It was a hotline between the USA and Moscow which saved the world from a nuclear catastrophe in 1960.

Further, China needs to be accommodated in the new order as a global power. India here can act as a ‘negotiator’ and ‘consensus builder’ among the nations on various issues.

Further, ideas of economists like Dani Rodrik can help accommodate new realities. The basic cause of reverse globalization being the lack of basic opportunities, poverty, and unemployment to natives. According to his idea, nations are tilted to capitalist-labor removing technology; rather, it is more beneficial in the long run to augment the less-skilled workers.

Amidst the chaos, Gandhiji’s saying should be remembered – “We have taken Earth on loan from the future.” Humans should be treated as an end in itself. New fault lines can be filled if each one becomes more accommodative and debate & deliberate with an open outlook. Then only we can forge a world, in the words of Rabindranath Tagore – “Where the world has not been broken into fragments by narrow domestic walls, where words come out from the depth of truth, where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit, where the mind is led forward by thee into every widening thought & action, into that heaven of freedom, let my country awake.”