Globalization—Quo Vadis?

The Global Financial Crisis of 2008–9 provided a critical watershed in the evolving global economic rebalancing and re-shifting towards China and Asia. The era of unchallenged US hegemony and “hyperglobalization” came to an end. Since 2017 the Sino-American geostrategic rivalry has taken centerstage in global affairs and is bound to play a decisive role in in the future evolution of globalization. Against the backdrop of Dani Rodrik’s (2011) “political trilemma of the world economy”, this essay reviews two recently published books on the subject matter of globalization that provide invaluable insights and strategic guidance into what is at stake. The first was published in November 2025, a single-authored work by Dani Rodrik titled “Shared Prosperity in a Fractured World: A New Economics for the Middle Class, the Global Poor, and Our Planet” (Princeton University Press). The second is a collection of contributions by expert economists co-edited by Lili Yan Ing and Dani Rodrik titled “The New Global Economic Order” (Routledge). Upon reviewing these two works the essay offers some further reflections on the future path of globalization and European integration.