CENTER ON GLOBAL TRANSFORMATIONS

This site hosts the Leibniz Prize Project of Moritz Schularick on "Global Transformations".

The globalization paradigm is rapidly giving way to new perspectives on the benefits and risks of international market integration. Global economic integration has spread prosperity in many parts of the world. But not only were the benefits spread unevenly and often accompanied by intermittent financial and economic crises. Globalization has also failed to help spread democracy around the world. Over the past 20 years, the world has been in a democratic recession marked by a decline in average levels of freedom, a rising number of undemocratic regimes and a reduced pace of democratic transitions. Populism and extremist voting have been on the rise in Western democracies as well, linked to growing economic insecurity. Moreover, global cooperation to address climate change has fallen short of even modest expectations.

With the old globalization paradigm fading, the question becomes paramount what a new paradigm can look like and how this global transformation can succeed. Analytically, the key axes of inquiry relate to the efficiency-security trade-off inherent in the global division of labor, the management of the risks of economic interdependence, as well the role of economic integration in supporting broader objectives such as democratization, as well as political and social stability.

The Center on Global Transformation, financed by the Leibniz-Prize funds, aims to develop fundamentally new insights on one of the most important questions facing in the coming years: how can a new economic narrative of globalization be shaped? Under what circumstances does economic integration promote democratic change? What aims and strategies should Europe develop to maximize the benefits of international co-operation while insuring against dependencies and the erosion of political stability? What geopolitical and geoeconomic options does Europe have in the face of a second cold war between the U.S. and China? And how can a global transformation be managed in the face of opposition from domestic lobby groups ready to play off short-term economic interests versus longer-term stability?

The Center on Global Transformation will address these topics from a broad interdisciplinary and international perspective combining the toolkits of economics and economic history, international political economy, and geoeconomics. It establishes a diverse group of researchers pursuing cutting-edge research across disciplinary, institutional and national frontiers. The research group will be composed of established and junior scholars, visitors and fellows, and reach out into the think tank community.

The Center on Global Transformation builds on the premise that these issues can only be addressed from a European perspective, which in turn has to integrate different European country perspectives and experiences. For Europe, it will be particularly important to develop a common Franco-German perspective on the European vision of the future global economy

FIELDS OF RESEARCH

THE EFFICIENCY-SECURITY TRADEOFF OF GLOBALIZATION

Import dependence and stability of production networks in history
The geo-economic and geopolitical externalities of global market integration
The economic, political and social effects of supply disruptions, embargoes and sanctions

GLOBAL FINANCIAL STABILITY AND DEPENDENCE