In 2024, nearly half the world’s population, including citizens of the eight most populous nations, voted or will vote in elections. While this signals democratic engagement, many elections are run by autocratic or illiberal regimes pursuing self-serving agendas. Paradoxically thus, as elections are generalising as a practice, democracy is met with growing defiance. On closer scrutiny, however, it appears that it is not only the indicators of democracy but also those of elections that have been declining over the past decade. This dossier, produced with the Albert Hirschman Centre for Democracy, examines the essential role of elections in the construction of democracy today.
© Chappatte dans NZZ am Sonntag, Zürich
The multipolar world succeeding US hegemony in the early 21st century, the financial crisis of 2007 and the corollary decline of liberalism seem to have ushered in an era of economic nationalism. States are increasingly left to fend for themselves as multilateral mechanisms lose traction and international economic relations gain in toxicity. The sanctions, embargoes and retaliations arising from the war in Ukraine, but also an accelerating struggle for dwindling natural resources, have pushed these logics to new heights. This Dossier assesses ongoing geoeconomic transformations and their potentially devastating consequences.
-
I
War by Other Means? Geoeconomics in the 21st Century
Reading time: 6 min -
1
Globalisation: The Danger of Safe Spaces
Reading time: 4 min -
2
Risky Interdependence: The Impact of Geoeconomics on Trade Policy
Reading time: 4 min -
3
A New Page in Global Sanctions Practice: The Russian Case
Reading time: 6 min -
4
The Politicisation of the Commodities Trade
Reading time: 4 min -
5
Sanctions against Russia and the Role of the United Nations
Reading time: 4 min -
6
A Renewed Neocolonial Scramble for Resources?
Reading time: 5 min -
7
The Rise of Geoeconomics
Reading time: 5 min -
8
Debt as a Political Weapon?
Reading time: 5 min -
O
Global Sanctions: A Bibliography from the Graduate Institute
Reading time: 5 min