240102 SE VM1 / VM2 - International trade, global production and geopolitics (2024S)

The economic disruptions in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have raised questions about the future of globalised production which have been reinforced by the Russian attack of Ukraine and increased geopolitical tensions. Already since the financial and economic crisis of 2008/09, globalisation of production has passed its peak, which was coined as slowballisation, and expectations of a relocation of production to countries of the Global North—variously described as reshoring, backshoring, or nearshoring—have been formulated from various sides. The drivers of such trends are said to include the vulnerability of global value chains due to natural disasters and man-made shocks, the effects of high transport costs, digitalization and automation, tensions in trade policy due to geoeconomic and -political shifts, and climate policy targets.

In this seminar, we will discuss the current state of globalised production in the context of these developments and what this means for uneven development in the Global South and North. We start by discussing the evolution of the ‘globalisation of production’, criticizing overly simplified perspectives on globalisation versus deglobalisation. Instead we pay attention to the multiscalarity and multipolarity of production and consumption structures. In doing so, we also assess the uneven outcomes of the type of neoliberal globalisation that has been dominant for over 30 years. We then discuss current developments, focusing on digitalisation, geopolitical shifts and tensions and the climate and resource crisis and their meanings and impacts. In addition to analysing (changing) firm strategies in different sectors, we see global value chains as politically shaped phenomena and stress the crucial role of policy in shaping geographical contours of production and related socio-economic outcomes. Finally, we critically assess whether we can speak of an end of neoliberal globalisation and of deglobalisation, and discuss how a new, more equal and sustainable global economic order could look like.