Competing Architectures in Globalization, Delinking, and a Shift in Global Balance
Presenter: Asher H. Katz
Faculty Sponsor: Deepika Marya
School: UMass Amherst
Research Area: Globalization and Development
Session: Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, 165, D7
ABSTRACT
We are witnessing an expansion of globalization models driven by the contraction of participating countries’ autonomy and the persistent threats of instability posed by (historically) U.S.-dominated institutions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO) consolidate this system, where development trajectories are shaped by conditional lending among a hierarchical ruleset. These groups facilitate trade and technological mobility but also reinforce dependencies that limit domestic policy autonomy, resulting in a growing market for alternatives. Initiatives such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the China Development Bank, and systems associated with BRICS are examples of experiments that seek to either escape or rebalance the terms of global integration. These alternatives reflect Samir Amin’s concept of delinking, where global isolation is not the goal, but rather disengagement for self-preservation. But how has this shift started, and what configures the human capital that drives Globalization? Ultimately, this adjustment implies that a central issue in globalization today is no longer how states integrate into global systems or how effectively they contribute– but rather under whose rules that integration occurs and how much sovereignty they retain in the process. This comparative study examines why China’s role is significant during this process, and how providing options allows Chinese institutions to modify bargaining dynamics for developing countries. In doing so, its developments compete with the enduring influence of the U.S. to shape the evolving structure and governance of contemporary globalization.