The State Under Pressure

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En provenance du cours de University of Pennsylvania

Global Trends for Business and Society

107 notes

University of Pennsylvania

Global Trends for Business and Society

107 notes

Cours 1 sur 4 dans Specialization Business Strategies for A Better World

In this course, you’ll learn to analyze rapidly changing global trends, their effects on consumer and labor markets, financial systems, and geopolitical relationships among countries all over the world. Professor Mauro Guillen of the Wharton School has designed this course to help you understand the magnitude of influence these trends have on the business world and society. Through real-world case studies, both historical and contemporary, you’ll examine how changes within one society affect others. By the end of this course, you’ll have gained the tools to be able to identify, analyze, and adapt to global changes as they affect your business and society.

À partir de la leçon

Module 4: The Shifting Geopolitical Landscape

In this module, you’ll explore global geopolitical landscapes and the global powers of the 21st century. Through examination of different political regimes—from autocracies to democracies—you’ll discover effective roles for states to play in society and its economy. You’ll also learn about failed states and anocracies, two importance sources of instability in the world, and how such instabilities manifest frictions and conflicts in the form of war and terrorism. Through analyzing the evolution of political regimes and failed states, you’ll learn the definition of global powers, the difference between and hard and soft power resources, and whether emerging global powers will cause dramatic changes in the existing geopolitical power structure. By the end of this module, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the trajectories of global powers, and be able to assess how the changes in geopolitical power structure will affect your business and society.

The Global Geopolitical Landscape2:43

Political Regimes8:03

Geopolitical Instability in the World4:45

Violent Conflict in the World5:36

The State Under Pressure3:27

Good Governance & Institutional Quality6:20

The Rise and Fall of Global Powers11:02

Global Power Resources12:27

China's Role in the World9:11

Global Governance8:44

Global Tensions9:35

Rencontrer les enseignants

Mauro Guillen
Professor of International Management
Director of the Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies

We just saw what can happen in the world in the absence of a working state

apparatus, that is to say when we have failed states.

And yet, at the present time, where I think we all feel is that governments and

states around the world, I've never been under so much criticism and stress.

Let's examine, so to speak, the state of the state around the world.

You see, I think over the last 30 years or

so, especially since the election of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and

Ronald Reagan in the United States, states have been under pressure.

There's being a legitimacy crisis, that is to say people have started to ask,

why do we need a government, or at least, why do we need a big government?

So this begs the question of, what's the proper role of the state in the society,

in the economy, in the world?

In Europe and the United States, as we all know the state is under physical pressure

because of very high levels of debt.

This chart captures a situation remarkably well,

it's very clear that in Europe and in the United States, also in Japan, the so

called advanced economies, public debt has gone through the roof.

Expressed here as a percentage of GDP, that's to say, adjusting for

the size of the economy.

Whereas, emerging and developing countries, as we can see.

Not only public debt is at relatively low levels but

it has tended to decline over the last few years.

Part of the problem is that governments have founded more difficult over the last

few years to raise tax revenue.

On this chart we have expressed as a percentage of GDP,

how much tax revenue is flowing through different parts of the world?

It's ironic to see that a Euro zone has by far

the largest tax revenues represented with GDP, which means that

they impose the largest tax burden on their citizens and companies.

And yet, many governments in that part of the world

are under pressure from a fiscal point of view.

Another very important part of the equation of course is to

what extent governments are spending money.

Again, expressed as a percentage of GDP.

And we see that there was a spike in public spending during the crisis years.

Of course as a result of the fact that whenever the economy

takes a turn to the worst, then unemployment

spending goes up in the form of benefits for those happened to be jobless.

But the introduction of austerity policies

to try to get those economies out of the crisis, has also meant a reduction in

public spending as a percentage of GDP in many parts of the world.

One final aspect for us to consider is

one specific category of government spending which refers to the military.

As you can see on this chart over the 10 or

15 years there's been a decline in most country around the world

in terms of the percentage of the GDP allocated to military spending.

Now, the strength will also have enormous consequences I think.

Thinking about the future, in the sense that institutions such as NATO,

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,

are now being re-examined both by European themselves and by the United States.

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