Is the globalization era really over?

Politicians and “thought leaders” declare globalization to be over. But their narrow and short-sighted analysis fails to grasp the ongoing economic, cultural, and theological globalities of our age.

At Easter, my thoughts tend to turn to the coming year. I’ve just been reaccrediting “The Globalization of World Politics” at the University of Exeter, the first course for all new BA International Relations which I will teach in the autumn of 2025. It is a course with a textbook of the same name – apparently the most-commonly used textbook of International Relations in the world – which was first published in 1997 and co-edited by two Exeter staff members when the course began over two decades ago. In September, I will teach IR to around 300 students through the prism of the big idea of globalization.

The prospect is somewhat daunting. Paying attention to the news in recent years, you may think the course is hopelessly out of date. We live in an era of geopolitics we are told where nations and borders are the currency, as brutally demonstrated in Ukraine. Our time is one of economic protectionism with trade tariffs and wars. The globalization era of the 1990s was a “holiday from history” and is long gone. Earlier this month, Keir Starmer put it bluntly: “globalization is over”. His chancellor Rachel Reeves said something similar two years ago: “Globalization, as we once knew it, is dead”. In a BBC debate this week, the end of globalization was taken as fact by “thought leaders” who traded cliches about world order, polarity, the balance of power, and capitalism. At one point, the chair, Justin Webb, called for definitions, but they were not forthcoming.

Definitions matter. Webb (or the BBC programme editor) tried one in his introductory remarks. Globalization is the idea that “we are better off when we trade, when we cooperate, when we share”, whose “big bang” was “when China was let into the international trading system at the start of the century”. Three things are immediately noticeable about this conception of globalization. First it is overtly normative; globalization is not just happening, it is good. Second, it is extraordinarily narrow, being focus on one aspect: trade in goods in the global economy. Third, it is extraordinarily presentist, taking its starting point just 25 years ago. We may add that it is an acutely Western rather than global perspective (how good of us to let China in, but what a mistake in retrospect!).

OpenAI. Is the Globalization Era Over? 2025. AI-generated image. https://chat.openai.com/

To be charitable, what Reeves, Starmer, Webb and talking heads across the globe are referring to is “neoliberal globalization”, the period of contemporary economic history where capitalism has been globalization and regulation recast as self-regulation. But even here, the argument doesn’t hold water. The growth of trade in goods will take a hit this year but it may not go down. According to the World Bank, US goods imports which are being tariffed are about 13% of all global trade. There will be knock-on disruption but it’s also possible that other countries and trading blocs will increase their trade with one another in response to US policy.

Moreover, trade in goods is just one of four pillars of the global economy. The others include services (which are not threatened by the trade wars), finance (which is they key driver of recent globalization and which has been empowered further by Trump through further deregulation and pro-crypto policies) and labour migration (which nationalist governments have long promised to reduce and failed to do so). According to the UN the level of overall migration has grown steadily since 2000 while the number of refugees has tripled. Certainly, there has been instability but little evidence of “deglobalization”. As ever, commentators are mistaking Trump’s capacity to disrupt for his ability to achieve certain policy aims.

So, neoliberal globalization may be unpopular, but it is not over. And to say that globalization is over is absurd. Again, definitions matter. According to our textbook, globalization “refers to the widening, deepening, intensification, and acceleration of worldwide interconnectedness”. This broad definition is appropriate for an expansive and contested concept. Globalization pertains to all areas of life not just trade in goods. And trade in goods is not a primary cause of globalization in these other areas. Even if trade in goods goes down, globalization may well intensify in these other areas, regardless of what nationalist governments try to do to slow it down.

If we take a much longer historical perspective, this is clear. Globalization is inconsistent and unsteady. Trade in goods increased dramatically in the 19th century before a big downturn with the world wars. Political and economic globalization arguably restarted in 1945 with the creation of the UN, the World Bank, and countless other international institutions. Many of those institutions which were sponsored by Western states are now imperiled but there are many more global institutions in a multi-polar system. Furthermore, in the long run, who would really claim that globalization is in decline? A world which was once composed of small communities and imperial centres which were loosely connected to colonies, now faces the compression of global space and time as people span the world in hours and information in micro-seconds.

Technology is one marker of extraordinary globalization over hundreds of years. Another is culture, shaped partly by advances in communication. Popular culture is truly global and is having the effect of marginalizing many “traditional” or “national” cultures (which were often themselves imports from other countries). Nationalists who seek to beat back globalization are themselves globally connected, swapping ideas in transnational conservative movements, networks, and online forums. This week, in England we celebrated St George’s day the national patron saint whom we share with many other countries including Georgia (of course), Ethiopia, Moscow, and Palestinian and Lebanese Christians.

From the perspective of Christians, the more profound reasons to be clear that globalization is not over are theological and biblical. Contrary to what nationalists believe, Christian scripture points to globalization. The book of Genesis presents Eden as global not local. The Tower of Babel warns against global unity but makes it clear that the boundaries between people are mutable. Monarchies and states like Isarael are provisional and passing away. The prophets predict the ends of empires and the “globalizing” kingdom of God on earth (for example, Daniel 2). Most importantly, Christ’s life and resurrection break down all barriers which declare one people to be more worthy than another. Only God is worthy and his people on earth are global. The church is a product of this unification of the world in Christ. Today, the Christian church is the most diverse and global community on earth.

So, if you think globalization is over, think again. In a world after Christendom, it is only just beginning. In an apocalyptic time, it will be necessarily inconsistent and disruptive. But neither King Canute nor Donald Trump are able to stop it.