At flabbergasting speed, we currently see a very unappetising authoritarian turn in the United States under President Donald Trump. Numerous executive orders, often on questionable legal basis, target international cooperation and funding for academia, which, in the mind of “strongmen”, merit little attention, anyways. (mehr …)
South African elections are but one event on a busy calendar in the global election years, where half the global populations goes to the polls – admittedly with varying degrees of actual voice in political matters. The country is among the bright ones, though, where votes clearly matter. The voters have turned a new page in politics at the Cape, setting a difficult task for a new government. (mehr …)
The BRICS group – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – invite six countries to join them for a BRICS+. The final list of invitees is an odd bunch: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iran from the Middle East, Argentina from Latin America and Egypt and Ethiopia from Africa, with the former also being an Arab state. This decision on specific members came after apparently tough discussions amongst current membership, as interests varied widely. Yet, the return of geopolitics seems to have revitalised a disparate group. Why (only) these six, what are likely effects on international relations, and who’s benefitting most?
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has put into sometimes sharp relief the different perspectives of inter- and transnational cooperation. The violation of the rules-based order after WWII caused shockwaves, specifically in Europe. Experiences of partners in, say, Africa or Asia with this international order historically differ from the European ones; consequently, even if we might share values, perspectives differ. While inter- and transnational cooperation is more needed than ever, cooperation takes place across deepened ideological rifts and conflicting material interests. This is a politically more complex world.
We thus need better structures for transnational knowledge cooperation and individuals who have the skills to navigate unchartered and sometimes choppy waters and address tensions in these difficult times. Training of actors is thus crucial, as a “Zeitenwende” is characterised by the absence of “business as usual”. Consequently, building and strengthening competencies of staff (and partners) to enable them to (re)act to and shape new and challenging situations matters largely for transnational cooperation.
Cooperation across borders is a precondition and basis for shaping solutions. Working on, say, climate change needs to combine knowledge (in the widest sense) from Europe, North America, China, India or Brazil as well as the participation of partners from most affected regions – Africa, South and Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Arctic. The same logic applies for other crucial elements for societies’ progress, if not survival: international knowledge cooperation is needed in order to understand, analyse, research global challenges systemically and from different perspectives.
Cooperation takes place in a context. In order to be effective and policy-relevant, research will have to include actors beyond academia and think tanks – and engage in transdisciplinary work, co-shaping research agendas. At the same time, work on global solutions directed towards the global common good needs to be based on evidence rather than self-interest and ideology. We thus have to consider power asymmetries, globally and nationally.
Globally, agenda-setting powers differ – and are undergoing changes. Traditionally grants mostly were funded “from the North”, coming with its own challenges, as this was (and still is) substantially impacting on research agendas in regions in need of funding. The North-South divide is an almost tangible narrative. At the same time, Europe is no longer the only show in town: the attraction of alternative actors increases, and their abilities have substantially increased over the last years, too. A decoupling into groups or friends and foes is certainly not a desirable scenario. We cannot simply accept the establishment of “political camps”, but need exchanges across North-South divides, as we need to cooperate for shared understandings and contribute to the global common good. As an illustration: the like-minded G7 needs to build bridges to other actors, not least so in the context of a more “southernized” G20.
Furthermore, national power settings matter for cooperation. Think tanks in authoritarian settings have limited range of manoeuvre. While they do play an important role in providing technical expertise and helping to explain “the outside world’s discussions” to decision-makers, experts might not be able to express their points publicly or outright. Their tasks also include the “projection of the official (inside) view” to the outside. Consequently, cooperation, as much as it is needed, is thus not without tensions, both institutionally and from an individual’s perspective. Bridges into difficult contexts are needed, and not least think tanks enable bridge-building, through dialogue and training activities.
Different sets of skills and competencies are required to navigate the more complex, multipolar world.
Training for professionals in global cooperation has to prepare early career participants for not only operating under these tensions, but to actively contribute to reducing them. First and foremost, tackling situations of high complexity and uncertainty under conditions of fragmentation demands a cooperative approach.
Training programmes need to go far beyond simply teaching “known facts” (and the question, what constitutes facts is an additional dimension for exchanges, anyhow). Knowledge is certainly necessary, i.e. the cognitive dimension of having information about facts, theories, procedures and being able to analyse and apply this information. Yet, competencies are much more. Based on knowledge, they include skills and attitudes. Skills are the ability to do something in practice such as applying a certain technique and using the appropriate tools in a given situation. And attitudes mean feelings and belief systems: in which way do we approach situations? Are we open-minded, risk-averse or experimental?
Cooperation competency is essential for overcoming fragmentation. It is required in order to reach a deeper understanding of different perspectives, thereby laying the ground for a joint analysis of problems and the creation of sustainable solutions. Key elements that nurture cooperation include skills such as active listening or being able to express own ideas and opinions in a clear and non-offensive way. Furthermore, communication competency is based on attitudes such as a learner’s mindset, believing that every perspective is important. In order to address and potentially overcome tensions, conflict management competencies are required, meaning a mix of self-awareness of own emotions (and what triggers them), the ability to manage emotional responses and to change perspectives by listening to differing opinions. Reflexivity is closely connected and refers to the ability to reflect on behaviour and values as well as the readiness to deconstruct established patterns of thinking and acting.
Exploring joint solutions in a more polarised, more uncertain world, however, also requires normative competencies in cooperative actors. Values are the ground we stand on in our positioning. Actors need to be aware of own values, to be able to express them and to identify and honestly discuss inconsistencies and tensions, be it within own value systems or with regards to partners’ values. Particularly in difficult times and in spaces where actors from different contexts with potentially contentious perspectives interact, it is important to be able to engage in an open dialogue with each other. In the very least, lines of cooperation need to be maintained.
And yet, in times of multiple fundamental crises and high urgency – a Zeitenwende – cooperation has to reach a different level altogether. It has to leave behind the policy paradigm of incremental adjustments in and optimisation of globalisation; cooperation needs to reach transformative quality. This is obviously also posing particular challenges to training.
We need to nurture creativity, an openness and willingness to explore new fields and to identify new ways of doing things in order to overcome business as usual. Actors need to sharpen their ability to take into account the interlinkages, side- and ripple effects of actions, drawing upon evidence. In brief: they need to analyse complex systems in a holistic way. Closely connected to this, training programmes need to strengthen anticipatory thinking as the capacity to create visions of a desired future, as well as the ability to strategically develop pathways of change towards this desired future by seizing windows of opportunity, designing interventions, building alliances for change.
In a nutshell: We cannot assume that “we are all in the same boat”, even though we are all facing the same storm. Yet, in order to weather the storm, we need to strengthen our innovative and creative abilities – jointly, wherever possible.
Photo by jplenio on Pixabay
Europe is facing some heat. Literally – with another heat wave grasping the continent – and figuratively with threats to the global order through Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Profound shifts are happening – with political answers too quick for some, and painfully slow when looking at evidence on the ultimate challenge: human-made climate change and its effects. We have seen indicators for disruptive change in the global order before: terrorism (after 2001), a financial crisis (2008), a global pandemic (since 2020), and, after a long build-up, the drastic effects of a climate crisis coming into focus with numerous extreme weather events. This blog is about the future of globalisation, in times of uncertainties and while we find ourselves with multiple challenges in a volatile, if not “reeling global order”. Let’s get to the fundamental then.
Political reactions to crises created a year of multilateralism in 2015, with the Paris Agreement and the creation of the Agenda 2030. Even through years of backlash, with destructive populist agendas like Brexit, the presidencies of Donald Trump, of Jair Bolsonaro, the global community continued working around political bottlenecks, be that by pledging individual “nationally determined contributions” (too little, according to scientific evidence), be that by establishing informal club-like coordination mechanism like the G20. These formats aimed at short-circuiting blockages in established multilateral global institutions. And yet, they inadvertently also undermined multilateralism, creating excuses for those who did not believe in it in the first place.
We cannot ignore the (literal and figurative) heat, we need to face it! We do not inevitably relive the at the turn of the last century, when “progress” was disruptive, did away with old certainties and made societies dizzy, as Philipp Blom described it. It’s the 2020s, not the 1900s. Russia’s attack on Ukraine drastically added political momentum for change, destroyed old certainties (or delusions?) about a rules-based global order, as seen in Europe – and brought afore differences in perspective across the globe, where the war is often seen as a European conflict.
Global politics is more than the pursuit of self-interests; we are interdependent, living on the same small planet with limited resources. Thus, a rules-based order working towards sustainability is ever more important. At the same time, cooperation is based on interaction – and broad-based personal contacts are disrupted due to a pandemic. Effects on cooperation between societies and economies are illustrated by the continued Zero-COVID-policy in China, for instance, which leads to backlogs before Shanghai harbour and disrupts production lines and value-chains. This creates even more incentives to further loosen transnational connections and disentangle relations. To this contradictory concoction came Russia’s invasion of a neighbouring country.
Previously, we were certain that Interdependencies have a stabilising effect. We thought that we can tip the scales in favour of “peaceful coexistence” by working on interconnectedness, making a unilateral change of the status quo very costly for all sides. Some actors might be aiming to shift boundaries gradually, trying to bully neighbours over contested territories. Alas, the saying was “we are all in the same boat”. The Russian invasion in the face of global challenges reminded us that while we are on the same ocean, we might be steering different boats. The invasion of Ukraine illustrates that it’s not only the economy, stupid: Russia threw its economic self-interests out of the window and went for an invasion despite high human and economic costs! While this might have been due to miscalculation of reactions to the war by “the West”, we still need numerous other players to bring the message to Moscow that this is an unacceptable violation of the international order.
We need to understand the various perspectives and motivations of countries: How much do they have to gain or lose from the current setting? How do they navigate global challenges? European politicians engage with counterparts such as Qatar for diversity of gas resources. Morally questionable, and yet necessary. It’s Realpolitik and it’s messy.
We need to be able to make our point – and still hear different, nuanced views. We are dealing with a more diversified world, in which engaging with China is a different matter from engaging with, say, Senegal, Ghana or Tunisia. While China is an economic partner and systemic rival, the latter are equally democratic states, yet with massive social, economic and ecological challenges, different historical experiences and locations, different power potential, which all makes for variations in priorities and sensitivities.
Many countries are well aware of asymmetries in power, which means that pressure can be exercised more easily in one direction. In its strive to diversify partners, many countries beyond Europe also find themselves in quagmires when trying to diversify relations. Countries and their political actors might not want to alienate any partner. And yet, their perspectives on partners might still be different from the Europeans’. Is China a flawless partner? – No. Would you still rather take a credit from Beijing than not have the infrastructure at all? – Sure.
Cooperation isn’t about whether partners “love us more”; it is about where we have common interests. Acknowledging that countries define their interests, that these are not necessarily identical to European choices and yet seeking communalities, is a first step in revamping relations. This does not mean that we agree to all arguments; some we will regard as profoundly wrong. But we need to understand the other, which requires listening rather than preaching.
Europe cannot claim to always be the morally superior part in cooperation. Historically, the effects of climate change are due to “the North’s” industrialisation, its exploitation of resources and peoples. This is the rich countries’ responsibilities, notwithstanding that this increasingly includes those who got rich recently by replicating the – unsustainable, fossil-fuel based – European/North American pathway. In fact, Europe over-consumes, under-recycles and uses way more resources than planet Earth has. At global scale, our lifestyle is the problem. In other words: we cannot simply teach, but need to learn with each other and be part of the solution.
Speaking of responsibilities is not to shun us into guilty silence because of choices of our forefathers. Current generations need to speak (and live up to) values, condemn Russia’s atrocities, and seek to convince others of our perspective. However, we need to overcome complacency, transform and avoid moral hubris!
Human cooperation is based on trust, and trust is in short supply. Where violence takes over – see Russia’s war, for instance – cooperation becomes impossible. Between Europe and Africa, historical experiences were traumatic on the African side, and have, to a large extent, been fast forgotten or even continue to be glorified by Europeans. Inequalities persist, racism is alive, and injustices within countries also continue to hurt societies. True, many countries have been independent for decades now, and some of their ruling elites have made wrong choices. Yet, the structural stacking of cards by (former) colonial powers persists. In this context, the return of stolen cultural artefacts might be symbolic, but it is one element in allowing for some healing. On the European side, it allows for – and ideally triggers – critically revisiting history. If we ignore historical responsibilities, cooperation has no future. Europe needs to continue engaging in self-critical debates, if it aspires to be(come) credible on its principles.
The Russian war on Ukraine questions fundamentals of the global order – ultimately: peaceful coexistence and sovereignty. To be clear: Military action is unacceptable, requires a firm answer to the aggressor, and we should certainly engage with third countries to clarify and promote our approach. The new setting should, however, not make us slip into a “with-or-against-us”-mentality towards those who do not fully share our perspectives. We might need to take a step back and discuss the fundamentals again, as Alexander Stubb suggested. And thereby discuss the future of global governance, and cooperation.
While the war seems to have revived “the West” as an entity for closer coordination, the discussion clearly has to be broader and more inclusive. We need to engage for the sake of our common future! This will certainly not exclude rivalry between different political systems and core values if practiced as a competition of ideas. Aggressive denial by some does not wipe out scientific evidence, and it cannot take efforts hostage to strive for more sustainability, if we are serious in our interest to survive as a species. Global challenges persist and we need to continue cooperation for the benefit, if not simply: the survival, of all – despite different world views.