8. The Political Dimension of Globalization

This chapter is the first of three chapters that discuss key dimensions of globalization. It focuses on political globalization the multilateral institutions and agreements that make it possible. The KOF index of political globalization includes “the number of international organizations of which the country is a member” and the number of “multilateral agreements the country has concluded since 1945.” The chapter discusses former President Trump’s dislike of multilateralism and his preference of bilateralism and the reason for this. It describes Trump’s efforts to undermine institutions ranging from NATO, the UN, and the EU to the WTO and WHO. The chapter also describes Trump’s effort to undermine multilateral agreements, especially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a deal with Iran to prevent that country from acquiring nuclear weapons and the Paris Climate Accord, a global agreement to reduce global warming and the environmental issues it deals with. The chapter describes how these actions isolated the U.S., conflicting with the preferences of its major allies and the steps Iran took in reaction to the renewal of American economic sanctions and the efforts to U.S. allies to evade those sanctions. The chapter then discusses bilateral efforts to overcome U.S.-Russian differences and to denuclearize Korea and how and why both were failures.