Studying Comparative Politics in University, we often touched upon international relations and how differences in power affected how states behaved and interacted. All of us growing up in the cold war era experienced a world dominated by two super-powers. After the decline of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin wall, new players entered the world stage. However, three main factors has put globalization and international co-operation at risk:
Russia´s decline and withdrawal from international co-operation
China´s reluctancy to compete on “Western” terms and conditions
Tens of millions of people in industrialized countries feeling marginalized by globalisation
Today we have a world security order, driven by the NATO alliance, an alliance becoming even more relevant after Russia´s invasion of Ukraine.
In addition we have a world economic order, dominated by US, but of course also China, India, Japan and the EU. Opposite the world security order, the economic order is and will remain a multipolar order as no state can dictate the trade rules and that the states are interdependent.
According to Bremmer, the next world order is a digital world order, and is not dominated by states, but by tech companies. Examples are their role in the war in Ukraine in terms of communication, the American presidential election in terms of voter behavior and en general in terms of how the algorithms influence us in our everyday life. He argues that they will determinate if we will have techno-polar world order or a world of freedom and technological cooperation. Concerns are the tech companies´s enormous power, and specifically AI, personal data, targeted advertising and the opportunities to affect democracies and our everyday lives.