Amidst the deluge of COVID-19 predictions regarding the new normal in our societies and economies, deglobalization is earning a prominent share of digital ink. The ebb and flow of global trade, cross-border science and technology development, and borderless industrial models is not new.
What is markedly new is the growing chorus of policy-influencing advocates across countries and regions to redraw the industrial map for science and technology with the objective to bring it closer to home. This movement aims to combat what is perceived to be a dystopian globalized economic model that is increasingly dysfunctional in the face of external shocks.
Notwithstanding the severity and impact of these shocks and how they are influencing policy making, science and technology development has evolved over many decades along three alternative models: globalist, regionalist, and nationalist.
While the latter is presently gaining support in fields such as healthcare, defense and security, communication systems, automation, and artificial intelligence, the other two models remain viable avenues.
Three core criteria have influenced decision making in recent times along the globalization-deglobalization continuum: access to best-in-class innovation, economic competitiveness, sovereignty and resilience.
The COVID-19 dynamics are in fact serving as a magnifying glass for the regionalist and nationalist models, leaving the globalist approach short of advocates. I would posit, however, that the three models are complementary and not mutually exclusive.
The globalist model has witnessed an unprecedented rise and benefited billions of consumers as illustrated by the exponential prevalence of personal electronic devices in our daily lives. Apple is the poster child of this model as it works with suppliers in more than 40 countries and across six continents to serve its ever expanding and firmly loyal user base.
This approach has enabled the efficient harnessing of resources and capabilities from around the world, and the creation of new markets that were unfathomable in previous periods.
Notwithstanding the loud drums of regionalist and nationalist models, the globalist approach remains indispensable.
The regionalist model has seen an increasing interest in recent years, with the European Union approach as a case in point. Europe has long held the aspiration of nurturing and developing global champions that would compete in the most advanced arenas. Airbus is a noticeable case in the aerospace industry and has been successful in its due right.
Europe’s new industrial strategy as announced earlier this year further underscores the regionalist approach as it aims to “maintaining European industry’s global competitiveness and a level playing field, at home and globally”. The strategy emphasizes, among other things, the need for “enhancing Europe’s industrial and strategic autonomy by securing the supply of critical raw materials and pharmaceuticals”.
These freshly re-minted aspirations for the European block shouldn’t be construed as an isolationist attempt but rather as a complementary foundation to the development of science and technology – in tandem with the globalist model.
The nationalist model has been prominently featured in recent news. The evolving geopolitical landscape between the U.S. and China, magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic, has given a sharp rise to competition in science and technology. The specter of a Thucydides Trap in economic terms is undeniably growing.
Beyond the escalating rhetoric, policy makers are rightly putting increased emphasis on their national security agenda. One may also posit that the emerging definition is rapidly expanding to science and technology fields that were largely left to-date to market forces.
Fields such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, 5G telecommunication systems, autonomous platforms, artificial intelligence and cloud computing are now increasingly subjected to nationalistic lenses that blend sovereignty, resilience and economic competitiveness. They join domains such as supercomputing and aerospace – to name a few – that have long been the focus of national security considerations.
The newly peaking nationalistic fervor is unlikely to abate any time soon. It is equally important, however, to see it as enabling science and technology in ways that are complementary to the globalist and regionalist models.
Going back to the title of this post, there is an argument to be made that some corners of science and technology are indeed deglobalizing. There is also a matching argument that science and technology more broadly will continue to thrive thanks to the borderless development models, past, present and future.
Viewpoints for the curious mind 