Fragmented Globalisation: Technology, Trade, and Culture in a Multipolar World

Globalisation, which was never thought to be a force that would integrate, is now very clearly fragmenting. Sanctions, shadow financial systems, and wars over digital sovereignty are reshaping the very foundations of global trade, technology, and culture. For emerging economies, this environment presents both a strategic risk and involves a strategic opportunity.

Emerging Economies and the Multipolar Financial Order

The unchecked hegemony of the U.S. dollar and Western payment infrastructures is yielding to parallel structures. Russia's move to rouble- and yuan-denominated settlements, BRICS Pay expansion, and India’s push for domestic digital public infrastructure (UPI, RuPay) show conscious attempts to decouple from SWIFT and Western payment systems.

There’s a need for credible institutions in monetary and regulatory matters. Bad governance can erode the confidence and empowerment a country hopes to establish, which takes away the very resilience those institutions are designed to foster.

Ecosystems of technology and digital sovereignty

A key part of the new competition is technology. Data localisation, restrictions on foreign applications, and an increasing emphasis on proprietary technology stacks indicate an intent to control vital digital infrastructure.

India is advancing comprehensive data protection frameworks and promoting indigenous digital platforms. For a long time, China has insulated its own domestic digital ecosystem so that home-grown digital platforms can dominate the market. Russia has accelerated its domestic cloud and internet infrastructures as a result of sanctions. For the bureaucrats, the policy balancing act is to reconcile sovereignty versus innovation. Facilities that insulate domestic digital ecosystems leave no room for competition, deter innovation, and investment. Inversely, over-dependence leaves domestic digital infrastructures vulnerable to external manipulation.

Trade Realignments and Supply Chain Resilience

Trade flows are being directly driven by geopolitical alignment. The IMF reports show that foreign direct investment and trade flows of countries within the same bloc and between nations in various blocs have plummeted since the start of the war in Ukraine, while intra-bloc flows have increased.

Emerging economies are embracing multi-alignment strategies - being part of BRICS+, regional free trade agreements, and bilateral arrangements - all at the same time - so as to maintain flexibility. At the same time, resilience of supply chains is emerging as the new focus.

Diversity of suppliers reduces concentration risk. For administrators, these changes mean rebalancing trade facilitation measures, regulatory norms, and infrastructure spending toward a less stable global regime.

Cultural Changes accompanying Economic Decoupling

When we talk about economic decoupling, we should pay just as much attention to cultural implications.

• Narrative Sovereignty: Developing countries are pouring resources into media and cultural institutions to counter dependency and the narrative of digital colonialism. Cultural diplomacy is increasingly a weapon of international legitimacy.

• Consumer Behaviour: Citizens adapt to local substitutes when foreign platforms are removed. This not only provides an opportunity for indigenous innovation, but it also introduces questions of quality and competitiveness.

• Skills and education: Need for STEM, cybersecurity and AI skills reflects a cultural value of technological sovereignty. However, privacy, surveillance, and digital rights shift public discourse.

For governments, culture and education policy go from the periphery of policy concerns to the forefront of sustaining strategic autonomy.

Policy Considerations and Strategic Reflections: The Way Forward

Resilience vs. Isolation

Sovereignty should not translate into isolation. Global systems' network effects ensure that nascent alternatives need scale, interoperability, and confidence.

Institutional Credibility

Payment systems, regulators, and courts need to be seen as neutral and capable. Institutional trust is essential, without which parallel systems will fail to command businesses' and citizens' confidence.

Equity and Inclusion

Fragmentation threatens to deepen internal cleavages - between digitally engaged elites and excluded groups. Digital infrastructure and literacy programmes need to be inclusive.

Possibilities for Establishing International Norms

Countries should develop and take an active role in defining international norms of artificial intelligence ethics, data flows, and transnational governance.

Conclusion

Fragmented globalisation marks a fundamental transformation of the global system of power, trade, technology, and culture. The underlying change implied in such a name is the shift from an integrated system-run largely by top few actors-to a multipolar setup, now constituted by parallel financial infrastructures, digital sovereignties, and geopolitical alignments. For emerging economies, it is thus a setup that brings both opportunities and risks for economic competition: chance to enforce strategic autonomy, nurture indigenous innovation, and complement trade, against the risk of becoming outcasts, remain institutionally irrelevant, and inapplicable. Traversing such an environment shall present a dichotomy between resilience and openness, protecting homegrown institutional and innovative capacities from being absorbed by creativity and innovation, and placing culture, education, and technology at the forefront of national policies. Those countries that will be able to combine sovereignty, credibility, and global outreach will be those that will not only manage to adapt to fragmentation but will also give face, shape, and legitimate form to the multipolar order of the twenty-first century.

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BY SOUMYA VARTIKA

THE INDIAN NETIZENS

contact@theindiannetizens.in