Opinion | Failing health of globalization: Covid-19 blow to a stressed order
Live MintIt has been a month of jitters, tremors and shocks for the world economy. Globalization in our times, which gathered momentum since 1980, has been confronted with mounting economic problems and consequent political challenges after a smooth sail of almost three decades. In industrialized countries, nationalist populist political parties, or far-right xenophobic populist leaders exploit fears about openness in immigration and trade as a threat to jobs, clearly visible in the US and Europe. Such toxic nationalisms across the world seek to capture the political space created by unequal outcomes associated with globalization. There was another wave of globalization in the late 19th century, coinciding with the zenith of European colonialism, the age of empire, manifest in an integration of the world economy through international trade, investment, finance and migration, which closely resembled globalization in the early 21st century and seemed unstoppable.