“Deglobalisation is displacing globalisation.” Comment. (2024, 20 Marks)
Globalisation, in David Held and Anthony McGrew’s formulation, is the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness. Deglobalisation is its sustained reversal; the Filipino scholar Walden Bello (Deglobalization, 2002) used the word for a deliberate Southern programme of re-localised economies. The statement captures a real turn since 2016, but “displacing” overclaims: integration is being re-ordered along strategic lines, not abandoned.
The case for displacement
- Revolt at the core. The backlash began in the states that wrote the rules: the Brexit vote (2016), “America First”, the US–China tariff war from 2018 and the replacement of NAFTA by the more restrictive USMCA (2020).
- Uneven gains. Dani Rodrik (The Globalization Paradox, 2011) argues that hyperglobalisation outran the domestic bargains that made openness tolerable; Raghuram G. Rajan (The Third Pillar, 2019) adds that markets and the state grew while local communities were hollowed out. Populism is Karl Polanyi’s double movement.
- Protection outlives its instruments. The 2025 emergency tariffs, including an extra 25% on India, were struck down in Learning Resources v. Trump (20 February 2026), yet a Section 122 tariff replaced them within days and a Section 301 action followed in July 2026.
- Decaying rules. The WTO Appellate Body has been unstaffed since December 2019; the Yaoundé ministerial (March 2026) ended without a declaration, and the moratorium on e-commerce duties lapsed for the first time. The United States left the Paris Agreement again, effective January 2026.
- Securitisation. COVID-19 shortages brought friend-shoring, chip export controls and China’s rare-earth curbs. The 2026 Iran war and the restriction of Hormuz passage, through which about 45% of India’s crude had flowed, turned interdependence into exposure. India answered with Atmanirbhar Bharat and production-linked incentives.
- Identity and the South. Hardening migration regimes revive Samuel P. Huntington’s cultural fault lines; the Global South, citing historical responsibility, reads the EU’s carbon border levy (definitive from January 2026) as green protectionism.
Why “displacement” overstates it
- The benchmark is 1914–45, when trade, capital and migration collapsed for three decades.
- Aggregate connectedness is at a record. The DHL Global Connectedness Report (March 2026) finds world connectedness steady at its 2022 peak, with goods trade and FDI travelling record average distances in 2025: the opposite of regional retreat.
- Services and capital keep moving. Commercial services grew 5.3% in 2025, faster than merchandise (WTO); global FDI rose 6% to about $1.6 trillion (UNCTAD); remittances to developing economies (about $685 billion in 2024) exceed FDI and aid combined.
- Decoupling is bilateral. China’s share of direct US imports fell from 22% in 2017 to about 9% by late 2025, yet much of that trade was rerouted through connector economies such as Vietnam and Mexico, which rely on Chinese inputs.
- Liberalisation has changed venue. 387 regional agreements are in force, and India has concluded agreements with EFTA, the UK and the EU since 2024.
Reading it theoretically
- Realists see interdependence turned into vulnerability: Henry Farrell and Abraham L. Newman call it weaponised interdependence (2019).
- Liberals such as G. John Ikenberry argue that rising powers seek more voice inside the open order, not an exit from it. The BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) demands reform of the IMF, World Bank and WTO, not their replacement.
- Transformationalists describe slowbalisation or geoeconomic fragmentation: selective by sector and by partner.
Conclusion
The evidence supports selective fragmentation, not displacement: a thinner, more securitised and more digital globalisation of the kind Rodrik recommends, with flows rerouted rather than reversed. India shows the duality. It gains from China-plus-one, with iPhone exports near $22 billion in FY26, yet loses as enforceable multilateral rules erode. Globalisation is being rewired, not switched off.