Geopolitical terms: Vocabulary for a new world

Proponents of globalization say that this has improved our lives significantly because it has boosted the world’s economy, helped create more jobs, and allowed companies to expand, manufacture at lower costs, and become more competitive on a larger scale. Globalization has made it possible for consumers to order an item from across the world and receive it within a few business days, while simultaneously offering them a much wider variety to choose from. 

However, globalization has not always been globally embraced, with some arguing that it puts certain demographic groups at a distinct disadvantage. An argument in this direction are the disgraceful working conditions that exist in some parts of the developing world and exploit workers, while feeding products into global supply chains. Elsewhere, they argue many have lost their jobs due to outsourcing, facilitated imports, and migrant workers, and creates greater inequality among skilled and unskilled employees. All of this has led to the rise of nationalistic and populist stances – which will be explained below – among some politicians and voters who feel globalization has led to a disadvantageous situation.

There’s also been some discussion about deglobalization, with certain groups in certain countries increasingly seeking local solutions and moving away from international treaties. While migration increased until the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, foreign direct investments haven’t returned to the boom levels seen in the decades through 2008 and the global financial crisis.

The rise of nationalism and protectionism, which we explain further down, are further examples of deglobalization. Think of Brexit, which turned EU relations upside down, or former US President Donald Trump’s retreat from a number of treaties and alliances. The question of whether deglobalization is accelerating especially arose during the pandemic, as it highlighted the risks that accompany an interconnected global economy and its supply chains. Additionally, the war in Ukraine – and the embargoes and sanctions against Russia that came with them – can also lead to deglobalization, slowbalization or friend-shoring and a newbalization.

With the emergence of deglobalization trends, so have new terms.

Some argue that deglobalization doesn’t accurately describe the current environment, and that rather, a term like slowbalization hits the nail on the head. If we look at the world’s recovery from the pandemic, some areas were faster to recover from the lockdowns, such as global migration and tourism. Some areas, such as the volume of global cross-border data transfers didn’t even budge downward during the pandemic. But other areas, like trade and logistics have been rebounding at a much slower pace. That’s partly because of labor shortages and shifts in demand. So, the term slowbalization argues that the globalization trends continue, just more slowly.

Others yet find newbalization better depicts the deglobalization trends. Rather than claiming that globalization has come to an end, they use this term to describe an evolved situation in which nations will likely rethink their trade, cross-border data exchanges, immigration policies and supply networks so as to ease their dependencies on individual countries and suppliers. This indicates more of a shift toward a new way of thinking of globalization, rather than the end of it, as there will be new countries that will benefit from these changes, like for example in the case of any increase in friend-shoring.

Friend-shoring occurs when countries focus or limit their supply-chain networks to allies and friendly countries. This helps nations protect their supply chains and reduce their dependence on nations they have tensions with. Earlier this year, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen mentioned friend-shoring in a speech that emphasized the importance of focusing on  trade and investment within a group of countries that share similar values, which some interpreted as an attempt to sideline China.

While this term refers to a period of political hostility and geopolitical tension between the Soviet bloc countries and the US bloc and its western allies from 1945 until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the term has increasingly made a reappearance in recent years. It received the name as it didn’t involve any direct military action, neither group ever officially declared war on another – even as they did fight via proxy wars, such as in Vietnam and Afghanistan -- ,and rather utilized the economy, politics, propaganda, and espionage in the conflict.

Building on that, let’s take a look at bloc formations. Blocs can describe a number of things. One way to interpret bloc formations are to view them as a geographical unit, examples of which include the European Union or the African Union. But it can also refer to group of countries that share the same values, goals, and ideologies and that might sign treaties, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, which counts 30 member states in a military alliance. As we look into the future, we may see more concrete economic blocs forming around major global powers like the US, China and Russia.

As the war in Ukraine rages on and shows no sign of abating, the risk of the world fragmenting has increased. That could take the shape of economic bloc building, as discussed above, and countries aligning according to ideologies, political systems and technology standards, according to the International Monetary Fund. It also means that the global supply chain becomes more fragmented, which has a negative effect on economic growth and spurs inflation.

A constant term in the news over recent years, it refers to a network between a company and its suppliers to produce and distribute a specific product to the final buyer. It encompasses everything from raw materials to the assembly of parts and the transport of goods to retail and even recycling.

For example, the pandemic saw lockdowns and restrictions disrupt supply chains, with closed factories and ports causing bottlenecks and shortages of various products and raw materials. But, once the world started to reopen, pent-up demand was unleashed and quickly started to outpace supply. It also upended supply chains due to labor shortages across multiple sectors, production halts due to Covid restrictions temporarily suspending some factories, as well as the closure of ports and airports, meaning supply chains had not yet rebounded to pre-pandemic levels when the geopolitical situation escalated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Among many impacts of this war, limited oil and gas supplies have led to a surge in energy prices. In addition, it impacted the supply of chemicals and car parts like cables to the European Union, partly due to sanctions and partly due to factory closures in Ukraine.

New terms that have arisen with the rise of technology are words like omnichannel and cybersecurity. Omnichannel refers to retail that encompasses various ways of shopping, including traditional brick-and-mortar stores, e-commerce on different types of mobile devices and phones. Even some of the most traditional industries that have long resisted a move to the digital space now fully embrace the necessity of offering omnichannel. But with that, cybersecurity has gained importance in supply chains, as it has elsewhere, with cyber attacks having risen fivefold in 2021 alone.

This term refers to a political ideology that one’s nation’s interests and sovereignty outweigh those of an individual and other countries, and the belief that one’s nation is superior to others. This type of belief is often found within right-wing political parties, as they benefit from people coming together as a common identity or ethnicity, and often frame them as being under threat from others. This leads to nationalist groups expressing xenophobia and being in favor of anti-immigration policies as they often see foreigners as either competitors for jobs or as poor burdens that need financial aid. It can also lead to more isolationist policies that hamper global cooperation between countries and international organizations.

A term that was named the international word of the year in 2016 amid Donald Trump’s presidential election and the Brexit vote, it conveys a scenario where appeals to emotions and personal convictions outweigh objective facts, spurred by an increasing number of people using social media as a source of news and information and a rejection of facts issued by governments and institutions.

These types of sanctions restrict financial and trade interactions with a country. For example, imports from said country could be banned completely or be made more expensive. Banks would also have to refrain from doing business in the country, while insurers would have to back off from insuring companies that trade with firms or governments in sanctioned countries – or even that insure a certain trade.

Diplomatic sanctions occur when a country wishes to exhibit discontent with another nation and can take the form of shutting embassies, calling back embassy workers or not attending government meetings. It could also take the form of cancelling the attendance of diplomats of a sanctioned country at important meetings and groups – as Russia was pushed out of the G8, which is now the G7.

These types of sanctions can involve an arms embargo, which forbids the supply of military items to a country.

As already mentioned above, these sanctions target people – like politicians, military personnel or economically important individuals – and mostly involve freezing their financial assets and preventing them from traveling around freely with bans.

A French grassroots movement where protesters called for economic justice for the working and middle classes, which included issues like higher minimum wages and wealth taxes.

Tang ping translates into “lying flat” and designates a social protest movement that began in 2021 in China, where some of the younger generations perceive the need for changes to their lifestyles by lying flat and having low aspirations instead of hustling to the point of exhaustion. Amid an aging population and a shrinking work force, young people especially have found themselves forced to work under more stressful conditions.

Another term related to the social pressures to work hard in China, bai lan translates into “let it rot” and reflects a certain feeling of hopelessness and voluntary surrender by young people to achieve their economic dreams, especially as the stringent Covid lockdowns contribute to uncertainty about their future and weighs on the economy. The term can loosely be compared with a slacker attitude.