Economic Globalization’s Polycrisis

Eric Helleiner defines polycrisis as “a cluster of distinct crises that interact in ways that they and/or their effects tend to reinforce each other” and argues that economic globalization is experiencing a polycrisis made up of five constituent crises: the deepening trade war between the United States and China; the move towards national self-sufficiency in reaction to the pandemic; Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and consequent sanctions; trade restrictions against countries with lax regulation against climate change; and the weakening of democracy. The conjuncture of these crises as a polycrisis makes the present situation unique from other recent instances of “crisis” in the global economy.