🌍 Global Politics · Predicted Questions 2026

Political globalisation is driven by states choosing to build intergovernmental organisations (UN, WTO, ICC), whereas economic globalisation is driven mainly by markets, TNCs and technology, with states reacting rather than designing.

Political globalisation constrains through treaty and law that states sign up to, whereas economic globalisation constrains through market discipline: capital flight, supply chains and credit ratings punish states without any vote being taken.

Political globalisation pools sovereignty deliberately and visibly (states can leave: Brexit, US ICC non-membership), whereas economic globalisation erodes sovereignty quietly, with no exit door from global markets.

Under supranationalism a body above the state can make decisions that bind members even when they disagree (EU qualified majority voting, ECJ rulings with direct effect), whereas under intergovernmentalism states only ever commit by consent, and consensus or unanimity rules protect each member (NATO, the UN General Assembly).

Supranational bodies can enforce: the ECJ fined Poland one million euros a day in 2021 over its judges. Intergovernmental commitments rely on goodwill: Paris Agreement targets are voluntary and the ICJ depends on states accepting its jurisdiction.

Supranationalism pools sovereignty, transferring slices of it to the centre, whereas intergovernmentalism retains it: a single member can block (Turkey delayed Sweden joining NATO until 2024; any P5 state can veto a Security Council resolution).

Realists treat sovereignty as near absolute, the defining shield of the state in an anarchic system, whereas liberals see it as permeable and increasingly shared: globalisation, human rights law and R2P all cut into it legitimately.

For realists the system is anarchy and self-help, so surrendering sovereignty is dangerous, whereas liberals see complex interdependence, where pooling sovereignty (as in the EU) makes states richer and safer.

Realists read institutions as tools of powerful states that bind only the weak, whereas liberals see them as genuine constraints that all states accept because cooperation pays.

AGAINSTParis (2015) achieved what Kyoto could not: near universal membership, a transparency and ratchet system, and five-yearly stocktakes.

FORIt did so only by making the targets voluntary. NDCs carry no penalty, and the US has now left twice, with withdrawal announced again in 2025.

JUDGEMENTA system everyone can join because no one is bound is process, not effectiveness.

AGAINSTThe COP process builds peer pressure and has produced real commitments, including the COP28 stocktake language on transitioning away from fossil fuels.

FORThe atmosphere is a global commons: every state gains from others cutting and loses least by delaying itself, and no body can force a sovereign state to act against its economy.

JUDGEMENTThe tragedy of the commons sits underneath every summit, and governance has no answer to it.

AGAINSTRenewable costs have collapsed, solar is the cheapest electricity in history, and the worst warming pathways have been trimmed.

FORGlobal emissions hit a record again in 2024 and the first calendar year above 1.5C has already been recorded. Measured against its own headline target, the regime is failing.

JUDGEMENTThe trend bends, but nowhere near fast enough to call the governance effective.

AGAINSTThe Loss and Damage fund agreed at COP27 and launched at COP28 shows the system can answer developing-world demands.

FORThe fund holds a small fraction of estimated need, and the older 100 billion dollar climate finance pledge arrived late. Finance failure feeds mistrust and delay.

JUDGEMENTPromises made, money short: the fairness gap keeps the governance weak.

FORRussia vetoed action on its own invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; the US repeatedly vetoed Gaza ceasefire resolutions in 2023 and 2024; Syria drew vetoes for a decade. The Council is paralysed exactly where the stakes are highest.

AGAINSTThe General Assembly used Uniting for Peace: resolution ES-11 condemned the invasion with 141 votes, and the Council did pass a ceasefire demand in March 2024 once the US abstained. Isolation and legitimacy costs are real.

JUDGEMENTCondemnation is not enforcement: the Assembly can speak, but only the Council can act, and the veto stops it.

FORMali ordered the MINUSMA mission out in 2023, UNIFIL positions in Lebanon came under fire in 2024, and the shadow of Srebrenica and Rwanda still defines the enforcement gap.

AGAINSTAround eleven missions still deploy tens of thousands of peacekeepers, and the record in Cyprus, Lebanon and earlier missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone shows cheap, real stabilisation.

JUDGEMENTPeacekeeping works where consent exists, which is precisely where the hardest conflicts are not.

FORThe Council's permanent membership is frozen in 1945: no permanent seat for Africa, Latin America or India, and reform requires the consent of the P5, the very states reform would dilute.

AGAINSTThe Summit of the Future (September 2024) produced the Pact for the Future with commitments to Council reform, and the US publicly backed permanent African seats. Adaptation is slow, not absent.

JUDGEMENTDecades of reform talk have changed nothing structural, and a body that cannot reform cannot recover authority.

FORNorth Korea tests missiles despite sanctions, and in 2024 Russia vetoed the renewal of the panel monitoring those sanctions. The norms hold only for states that choose to obey.

AGAINSTThe UN brokered the Black Sea grain deal in 2022, coordinates humanitarian relief in Gaza and Sudan, and the NPT framework it anchors has kept nuclear weapons to a handful of states.

JUDGEMENTValuable services at the margins do not amount to maintaining peace and security at the centre.

FORThe biggest TNCs have market values larger than most states' GDP, move production across borders and bargain tax rates down: states compete for them, not the reverse.

AGAINSTStates still set the legal framework: the EU's digital rules have fined the platforms repeatedly, and the US forced TikTok towards divestment by statute in 2024. When the state legislates, the company complies or leaves.

JUDGEMENTCorporate power operates inside rules that only states can write, which is influence, not sovereignty.

FORArmed non-state actors shape whole regions: ISIS held territory across two states, and groups from the Houthis to private military companies disrupt trade and fight wars.

AGAINSTISIS lost its territory to state coalitions by 2019, and when the Wagner Group challenged Moscow in 2023 it was decapitated and absorbed within months. The monopoly on legitimate large-scale force snapped back.

JUDGEMENTNon-state violence is a problem states manage, not a transfer of the means of war.

FORNGOs and civil society set agendas states then follow: the landmines ban began with a campaign, and climate activism pushed net zero up every government's list.

AGAINSTAgenda setting is not decision making. Only states sign treaties, impose sanctions and ratify law; NGOs lobby at summits they are not voting in.

JUDGEMENTNon-state actors move the conversation; states still take the binding decisions.

FORPlatforms and their owners shape elections, wartime communications and public truth itself, a power no state fully controls.

AGAINSTStates are reasserting control: EU content law, Indian and Brazilian platform bans and suspensions, and the US TikTok statute all show the regulatory state catching up.

JUDGEMENTEven in the newest arena, the direction of travel is states reclaiming ground.