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.
© Chappatte in NZZ am Sonntag, Zurich www.chappatte.com
We currently face a baffling paradox. While since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a seemingly inexorable process of globalisation has been foreshadowing a peaceful and frontierless world, the number of walls across the world has been rising at a steady pace. Liberal and open societies buttressed by trade, international law and technological progress were supposed to implacably contribute to the erosion of frontiers and walls between nations. However, in a context of surging populist discourses, securitarian anxieties and identitarian politics as well as concomitant flows of migration alimented by climate change, conflict and poverty, nations have recently started to barricade themselves behind new walls.
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I
Whither Cosmopolis: Yearning for Closure in Times of Uncertainty
Reading time: 5 min -
1
A Contagious Craze for Walls
Reading time: 2 min -
2
The “Great Wall” of America: Historical Opportunities
Reading time: 3 min -
3
Between Security and Apartheid: Cinematic Representations of the West Bank Wall
Reading time: 4 min -
4
Battle of Identities at the India-Bangladesh Border
Reading time: 5 min -
5
Turkey and the Middle-East: From Imperial Temptation to National Closure
Reading time: 4 min -
6
Combating Terrorism on the Somalian Border: The Improbable Kenyan Dream?
Reading time: 5 min -
7
Korea: Comfortable Wall, Uncomfortable Peace
Reading time: 4 min