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Although humanity’s success as a species owes much to its own fragility and the solutions we found to compensate for it, the present era presents an unprecedented challenge to our future. The Covid-19 pandemic was more than a transient crisis. Among many of its consequences, it hastened and consolidated a collective mood of frustration and melancholy, embedding it in the uncertainty that is the hallmark of the contemporary world. Covid-19 was, in this sense, a “flu” that unveiled the vulnerability of a seriously ill—social—body and the chronic fragility of its values and bonds. Not only did it sharply increase global inequalities, but it also revealed the system’s inability to deliver security and health for the majority of the world’s population. A condition that until then had been recklessly overlooked.
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Immersed in this predicament, on the brink of multiple collapses, it seems genuinely hard to imagine a future. The gap between ethical-moral progress and technological and scientific development—much more rapid—has gradually fostered arrogance and a false sense of self-sufficiency, tearing our awareness of human fragility. Thus, we seem only able to helplessly witness the rise of autocracies and financial indoctrination over the ruins of more than 40 years of neoliberalism. Proof of this is the fact that, to date, far more resources have been mobilised to uphold wars than to finance the tackling of the environmental crisis, the eradication of hunger or the overcoming of health system deficiencies.
Such a scenario of crisis and uncertainty now fuels reactionary extremism, allowing for the easy adoption and proliferation of hate speeches based on negative distinctions. This phenomenon can be clearly observed in Latin America. During the past decade, several democratic projects in the region had materialised popular representation and promoted sovereign policies that broke away from the neoliberal course imposed until then. All of them eventually gave way to an extremely violent backlash.
The crises sweeping through the present world order have unveiled the unsustainability of a system of consumption built on excess and extraction.
A decade later, many of these political experiences, some of which had led to the drafting and approval of new constitutions, were to be met with fear and hostility from groups opposed to anything new or transformative. This rejection is instilled in the population by the extremist forces decisively contesting democratic consensus—whether through the delegitimisation of election results or other kinds of attempts at destabilisation.
These regional and local trends clearly parallel global issues such as the so-called “fragile multilateralism”. A form of multilateralism that has failed to establish itself as a global consensus, a horizontal method of arbitration, due to the disproportionate weight still held by “core” countries to the detriment of their “peripheral” counterparts [1][1] PÉREZ CALDENTEY, Esteban, SUNKEL, Oswaldo, & TORRES, Miguel (2012). Raúl Prebisch (1901-1986): Un recorrido por las etapas de su pensamiento sobre el desarrollo económico [Raúl Prebisch (1901-1986): A journey through the stages of his thinking on economic development]. Santiago: CEPAL. Available here: https://www.cepal.org/es/publicaciones/40062-raul-prebisch-1901-1986-un-recorrido-etapas-su-pensamiento-desarrollo-economico. The centre-periphery theory of the world system [2][2] WALLERSTEIN, Immanuel. The centre-periphery theory, which draws on Marxism, analyses social development and capitalism based on the premise that the more powerful countries exploit the less developed ones in the globalised economy. is unfortunately still in vogue today, and this has led to the erosion of multilateral action, evidencing the incapacity of the international system to resolve armed conflicts. However, this same fragility has given rise to a scenario of so-called “multipolarism”, with a number of poles of power now disputing the world order, opening up the possibility of a paradigm shift. A new order in which the “peripheral” and “semi-peripheral” countries will no doubt play a more central role.
In this volume, the authors contextualise, analyse and assess different outlooks on these structural challenges affecting local and global governance from various political, economic and geopolitical perspectives. By generating a constructive dialogue on the present state of affairs, metapolis Volume 5 aims to map out possible futures before democratic consensus crumbles for good.
Former Prime Minister of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, inaugurates this issue and its two volumes with the resounding proclamation that Peace is always “an Ongoing Endeavour”. In his article, the former premier outlines major advances in international coordination to meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, establishing their potential as steps towards a global constitution. Arguing that globalisation is a journey that cannot be unravelled, he urges us to bolster its virtues while also rectifying the mistakes that led us to global warming and the current scenario of geopolitical dispute. Zapatero urges the reader to dare think the impossible in order to find a new future on the horizon, pointing to the abolition of war as the priority of this new imagination; identifying science, progress and equality as the only possible ways to overcome the threat of self-destruction.
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One of the multilateral efforts that best illustrates this constructive outlook is detailed by the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Pedro Manuel Moreno, in his article “Global Tensions and Trade Sovereignty”. The war between Russia and Ukraine has led to a serious blockade in the global food and energy supply chains, evidencing the impossibility of national self-sufficiency. Beyond satisfying urgent needs for inputs and goods, the author argues that global trade can be essential in exploring ways to settle conflicts. And he illustrates this with the UNCTAD-led Black Sea Grain Initiative case. Bent on protecting food security in the least favoured countries, this initiative proved the importance of multilateralism as a driver of welfare and development, enabling the distribution of millions of tons of food that would otherwise have been stuck in Black Sea ports, prevented from fulfilling their mission to feed the world.
The planet is becoming an increasingly hostile place, as if to demonstrate the inconsistencies of the modern project in its attempt to dominate nature.
Soledad Magno, former director of Cooperation at Argentina’s Ministry of the Interior, delves into the phenomenon of “The Rise of the Far-Right as a Result of the Crisis of Neoliberalism” with the case of Argentina. Starting with a critical examination of neoliberalism and moving on to the catalysing effect of Covid-19 and the continuous financial indoctrination of national governments, the author’s analysis addresses the final, disruptive phase, the one seized upon by Javier Milei. At this juncture, Magno analyses how the president’s violent, anarcho-capitalist project, which tests the limits of the system itself, lacks any kind of commitment to reversing the logic of inequality. Quite the contrary, it pledges to deepen them.
Milei, Bolsonaro, Trump and the other autocrats of our time build on the ruins of more than forty years of neoliberalism. In his article “The Age of Uncertainty. Liminal Time”, Álvaro García Linera, former Vice-President of Bolivia, details the symptoms of this shattered epoch, marked by the collective allegiance to multiple and deceitful promises. Together with the current market-driven model of globalisation, such pledges have tarnished the notion of universality. Now, as geopolitics collide with the dogmas of the free market, it appears that the current cycle of accumulation (historically rebooting every forty, fifty or sixty years) is drawing to a close, and a new time, accelerated and confused, is emerging. This “liminal time” is marked by a host of interrelated phenomena, such as inter-elite disputes and the impossibility of foresight, but it also entails a kind of cognitive openness to new organisational principles. It is a time of transition which, in the absence of a fixed destiny assimilated by the majority, can become a propitious social moment for the emergence of a new global common sense.
In line with this period of transformations we are immersed in, Diego Borja, former Minister of Economy and Finance of Ecuador, offers a critical review of the global handling of common challenges and of the international financial order. In his article “Towards a different economic order: A vision from the South”, the economist explores the emergence of a new economic order in which the so-called Global South is gaining prominence, whilst at the same time overcoming neo-colonial relations with the countries of the North. There are many areas of alignment between the countries of the South, whether it be in terms of public policies for tackling global warming or the desire to establish a financial alternative detached from the USD, favouring commercial exchanges in national currencies. The development of these common paths and of regional alliances such as the BRICS+ and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) indicate how the Global South is building a new multipolarity that promises to challenge the global status quo.
Finally, in her article “The Nakba as a rite of passage… towards genocide?”, Brazilian historian Arlene Clemesha addresses one of the geopolitical crises currently putting the most strain on the global order. Starting with a much-needed retrospective analysis of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the author tackles the situation of constant warfare —in varying levels of intensity—that the so-called “Holy Land” has endured for decades: from the “artificial” origin of the Jewish state and the forced expulsion of thousands of Palestinians, to the gradual establishment of an apartheid regime under the indifferent gaze of the international community. By reviewing the historical facts and the main historiographical controversies and narratives —that is, the hegemonic accounts of those facts—, Professor Clemesha reveals the importance of detailing and elaborating on the chains of causality that thread through the conflict. Thus, her article explores how the imposition of a state in a crucial geopolitical enclave would first lead to a mass displacement consolidated by systematic ethnic cleansing, and how this process would then deteriorate into the Apartheid regime that led to the genocide we now witness.
The failed coup d’état that Bolivia recently experienced in June 2024 is yet another example of the fragility of contemporary democratic systems, and of their permeability to the fear generated by the lack of a political horizon. This collective disaffection is by no means a new phenomenon, but rather very similar to scenarios already undergone in the 1920s and 1930s at a global level, or in the 1970s and 1980s in Latin America. The world then faced the “decadence of the West” and the crisis of liberal democracy, plunging into a political scramble to capitalise on social outrage. Much of the ground then lost was gained by the right-wing in its various branches, and so it is that the —primarily discursive—dispute over who can build possible and desirable futures continues to dominate the agendas of the present.
Climate change, the migratory crisis, the wars once again raging across the globe, the financial crisis, and the irruption of Artificial Intelligence, these are without a doubt the main challenges facing humanity today. The reactionary sectors know well how to capitalise on all these threats, and the lack of certainties they bring with them. The question left open, to which this volume seeks to propose possible answers, is whether those of us who stand for equality, redistributive policies and social justice will be able to navigate this troubled time.
Whether humankind, ultimately, will emerge from the crossroads of the present and succeed in shifting the horizon.
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