Economic Globalization's Polycrisis

Abstract

In this article, I suggest that economic globalization is experiencing a particularly serious kind of crisis: a “polycrisis.” Use of this term has proliferated recently but with many meanings. I propose that it be defined as a cluster of distinct crises that interact in ways that they and/or their effects tend to reinforce each other. This core definition enables the identification of distinct types of polycrises that capture multiple uses of the term to date. These types vary according to the spatiality, temporality, and level of generality of each polycrisis as well as the traits of its constituent crises. The analytical utility of the term, when defined in this way, is to encourage scholars to analyze interconnections between different kinds of crises across various issue areas and to reject monocausal analyses of crisis clusters they study. Applying this understanding of the concept to the study of economic globalization, I focus on five constituent crises that are contributing to its current polycrisis. This application of the term highlights yet another type of polycrisis, illustrating the importance of the conceptual issues raised above. The article concludes with some cautions about efforts to predict economic globalization's future and about ways in which polycrisis discourse may serve political projects.