Global South: Moving Towards Modernization
Date:
Wed 26 Mar 2025 1045h
Boao Forum
Panel — Global South: Moving Towards Modernization
Panelists — Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Aravind Valery, Kirill Babaev, Huang Yiping, Danny Quah, Xiaojun Grace Wang, Zheng Yongnian
Moderator — Volkan Bozkır, President of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly
I made three points on how, as small economies (whether in population or in spending power or both), members of the Global South now see the pathway to modernization being pulled out from under them.
ONE // When you are a small economy, you take the “tablets, teachers, textbooks, and trains” route to modernization. All these policies raise your production capacity. They expand your supply side.
TWO // This worked because global demand used to be elastic. No more.
THREE // You could try to collaborate through multilateralism and international organizations to be stronger together. But this is the tragedy of multilateralism. All international organizations eventually break down if what is expected to hold them together is goodwill, mutual exhortation, or a sense of duty. Conversely, international organizations endure if every member finds it to their benefit to continue to collaborate, i.e., if the organization is incentive-compatible. This is also why the Global South should not look to the Middle Powers to lead: Middle Powers will be no better than the Great Powers have been. The Global South needs to look elsewhere, to develop platforms for inadvertent cooperation, where you can cooperate even without agreement, where those you engage with do the right thing even if it’s for the wrong reason.
Blogged this out at Boao Forum: The Tragedy of Multilateralism for the Global South