This article argues that one of the key questions—or even the key question—of our times is how to foster enhanced compatibility between national policy-making sovereignty and effective multilateral cooperation. There are multiple reasons for this. First, given the growing importance of global public good-type policy challenges and the rising trend toward multipolarity, the relationships among countries are now de facto marked by universal multilateralism. International cooperation is no longer only an option, as it conventionally was (especially for the major powers), but a compulsion. This new, binding type of multilateralism is called here “multilateralism 2.0” to distinguish it from the conventional, more optional type of multilateralism. Second, necessary systematic reforms to make global governance fit for the new reality of multilateralism 2.0 are still lacking, because states value their sovereignty. However, a persuasive reform vision and reform leadership have not yet emerged; currently, uncertainty exists about how to have both sovereignty and effective cooperation. The world is experiencing a “Kindleberger moment”: crisis and no leadership. Accordingly, this article offers concrete suggestions on possible ways forward. It suggests that the most important and urgent reform is to forge consensus on a new principle: the “dual-compatibility principle” calling for a commitment of states to (i) more sovereignty-compatible multilateral cooperation and (ii) an exercise of national policy-making sovereignty that is more compatible with multilateral cooperation. To clearly see the critical importance of this principle, a prior, eminently doable reform step is needed: widening the analytical lens of multilateralism to capture both the “real” and the “political” sides of this phenomenon and to recognize that the former is, in effect, the independent variable and the latter the dependent one.

The past decade has seen a gradual convergence between the modernizing, top-down development agendas associated with “new donors” to Africa and the human development agenda more commonly linked to traditional donors. But while instruments such as the Sustainable Development Goals now demand both industrialization and empowerment, donors still struggle to reconcile these competing expectations. This article uses a variety of qualitative data to examine one such project: the attempted transfer of Japanese management techniques (or kaizen ) to workplaces across Ethiopia as part of Japanese official development assistance. Asking why and how the Japanese and Ethiopian governments pursue these aims, the article finds an intervention that is low modernist in design: its goals and logics are modernist but tempered by a respect for local knowledge and a preference for evolutionary over revolutionary change. The fact that Japan is the donor to promulgate such a paradigm is no coincidence, I find, given the historical origins of kaizen and Japan’s long-standing hybrid role in international development debates. Low modernist interventions such as Ethiopian kaizen demonstrate the utility of moving beyond dichotomies (China/West, growth/equity, efficiency/empowerment). But in both Ethiopia and the Japanese aid apparatus, powerful centrifugal forces still make low modernism a difficult balancing act to achieve.

This essay uses the tools of Western empirical reasoning to analyze the origins and driving forces of the ongoing geopolitical contest between China and the United States. The essay argues that the origins of the geopolitical contest lie in China’s rapid growth from the Deng era, the relative socioeconomic decline of the United States, and the failure of the United States to work out a rational, comprehensive strategy for managing China’s rise. Finally, in the fallout of the global COVID-19 pandemic, where the relations between the two countries have been further strained, the essay argues that the two countries can manage their geopolitical rivalry if they concentrate instead on five “noncontradictions” that also characterize their relationship: that between the fundamental national interests of both countries; in tackling climate change; in the ideological sphere; in the American and Chinese civilizations; and in their worldview.

The outbreak of Covid-19 prompted the greatest political intervention in our lifetime. Governments around the world introduced measures that shattered our private life, brought economic life to a virtual standstill, and threw into question the value of international organizations. The article first shows how the political interventions undertaken throughout 2020 have crushed long standing equilibria on such fundamental issues as the notion of a common good, the limits of individual freedom, or the relationship between the state and markets. It then analyses the battle of power and minds between the main political protagonists. The following section scrutinizes the policies applied by these actors, and their implications for democracy. The final section tries to envisage a democratic politics suitable for the world of viruses, super-bugs, climate change, poverty and hyper-connectivity.

The deepening economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has elicited extensive policy responses, but also raises daunting challenges for global governance. This policy-oriented article explores the new challenges for multilateralism, assesses efforts to coordinate these policy responses, and considers likely outcomes.

The deep recession expected as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will leave both governments and private-sector companies with a greatly increased debt burden. That will have severe consequences for the financial system. Banks will suffer large-scale defaults on business and personal lending. To work off the debt overhang, interest rates may be held down by central banks for a long period. Inflation may rise, which would deflate the real value of debt, but inflationary pressures are currently weak. Financial repression will add to the pressures on banks and other financial institutions. Major banks enter the crisis period with high capital ratios, but expected losses on loan portfolios will put some under strain. Less strongly capitalized new entrants may suffer disproportionately. Other likely changes are more rapid growth in digital financial services and a decline in cash usage. Central banks will probably issue their own digital currencies, which will make maintaining negative interest rates more achievable. At the same time, the international financial system will be put under strain by global tensions generated by the crisis. In this complex environment, it will be crucial for governments, central banks, and the banking system to collaborate closely and for the European Union to bolster the eurozone with long-planned but long-delayed reforms, in particular to promote a capital markets union that could relieve pressure on banks’ balance sheets.

The dramatic interventions to fight the coronavirus pandemic undertaken by many governments all around the globe are unique since the Second World War. They massively restrict economic, civil society, cultural, and personal freedoms. So far the population has been willing to cooperate. In view of the huge current and future costs, it is crucial that citizens remain confident that there are good reasons for the measures. This trust is endangered if the population is unable to understand crucial aspects, and therefore insecurity grows. The costs to be borne vary greatly: permanent employees or civil servants are far less affected than restaurant operators, hairdressers, self-employed cultural workers, and most shop owners. Their confidence is based essentially on how well the following questions are answered. What guidance can the social sciences offer?

Personal and intimate consequences of cultural globalization have received little critical attention in comparison to scholarship on politics, finance, or the environment. Taking digital technology practices of young adult expatriates as an entry point to understand the emotional and affective consequences of transnational mobility, in this article we research the interrelated cultural politics of emotion, migration, and digitization of middle-class mobilities. Presenting a case study of digital experiences of young adult expatriates (aged fifteen to twenty-five years) living in the Netherlands, we seek to better understand how emotions and affects of middle-class transnational mobility are mediated through digital technologies. Our empirical argument draws from thirty-one semistructured, face-to-face in-depth interviews with young adult expatriates and smartphone photo-elicitation exercises. We develop the notion of transnational digital intimacy practices to address how transnational mobile subjects negotiate emotional precarity through selective smartphone and social media practices. Finally, we call into question the notion of “expatriates” as supposed elite mobiles with global privilege. This article is part of the Global Perspectives , Media and Communication special issue on “Media, Migration, and Nationalism,” guest-edited by Koen Leurs and Tomohisa Hirata.

Few authors feature the rare quality of threading their academic prose with clarity, attractiveness, and sophistication. John Keane is one of those authors. The Australian intellectual has produced one of the most innovative works of recent decades in the field of applied political theory, which simultaneously exceeds the dreams of some essayists with philosophical pretensions and the aridity of the majority of writers on comparative politics.