Revision summary
Overcentralised globalisation concentrates rules, capital and the dollar in Northern centres and exports risk south. A Global South-sensitive model shares voice, WTO policy space, climate finance and digital/food buffers. G20, Voice of Global South, AU membership of G20 and BRICS are incomplete pluralising moves. Trump tariffs show the core can revolt against its own system; Southern grievance is not the only crack. The aim is embedded liberalism with a wider membership, not autarky.
Model answer
Introduction
Overcentralised globalisation is a system in which rules, capital and reserve-currency privilege sit in a few Northern centres, while risk is exported south. A Global South-sensitive model would keep openness but spread voice, policy space and buffers. The claim of the question is preventive: without that shift, globalisation dies of its own political reaction — tariffs, WHO walkouts, and democratic backsliding fuelled by left-behind regions.
Body
The danger of overcentralisation
John Williamson’s Washington Consensus, IMF conditionality, and TRIPS-era intellectual property produced growth for some and crises for others (Stiglitz, UNCTAD). Dollar dominance means U.S. interest-rate turns become emerging-market shocks. Standard-setting in tech, green tariffs (CBAM), and health rules can look like regulation without representation. COVID vaccine hoarding was overcentralisation in a moral key. Trump’s 2025 reciprocal tariffs are the core’s own revolt against the system it wrote — proof that the danger is not only Southern grievance.
What ‘sensitive’ would mean
It would mean special and differential treatment at the WTO that is real, not rhetorical; a repaired dispute system that the strong cannot ignore; climate finance and technology transfer that match Paris promises; reform of IMF quotas; and digital public infrastructure that is not only Silicon Valley’s. G20 under India’s 2023 presidency, the Voice of Global South summits, African Union in the G20, and BRICS expansion are incomplete attempts to pluralise the table. UNCTAD, South–South trade, and regional value chains (ASEAN, African Continental FTA) are the economic geography.
Sensitivity is not autarky. It is embedded liberalism with more than North Atlantic members. Food public stockholding, energy transition pathways, and data localisation debates are where India actually fights. A model that tells Lagos and Lucknow to wait for trickle-down will feed both Southern populists and Northern protectionists.
Prevention, not poetry
- Overcentralised globalisation produces the twin of Q2(a): elite-driven openness without domestic buffers, then nationalist backlash. A Southern-sensitive order would still have conflict — China is not a charity — but it would reduce the sense that multilateralism is a club. WHO reimagining, WTO salvage, and India–EU talks after tariff threats are all tests of whether rules can be recentred without a 1930s smash. The alternative is blocs, weaponised interdependence (Farrell and Newman), and a smaller world.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD OC[Overcentralised globalisation] --> D[Dollar rules TRIPS] OC --> B[Backlash and tariffs] GS[Global South-sensitive] --> V[Voice finance S&DT] V --> S[Sustainable openness]
Conclusion
A Global South-sensitive globalisation keeps trade and science but shares rule-making, finance and policy space. That is the practical answer to overcentralisation. Without it, openness collapses into tariffs and clubs.
Quick related
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Latin America has made moderate success in countering US-led global economic order by framing various organizations emphasizing regional sovereignty, economic integration and alternative development. Discuss
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Is BRICS a Global South-sensitive globalisation?
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Does sensitive globalisation mean protectionism?
It means policy space for industrial and food security, plus fairer rules — not a general war on trade. Tariff nationalism in the core is a different, more destructive animal.
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Q4(a) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 2 · 20 marks
Latin America has made moderate success in countering US-led global economic order by framing various organizations emphasizing regional sovereignty, economic integration and alternative development. Discuss
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Latin America answered U.S. economic primacy with Mercosur, ALBA, UNASUR, CELAC, Banco del Sur and Brazil’s BRICS role. The intellectual root is ECLAC, Prebisch and dependency: unequal exchange and the need for regional policy space. Success is moderate: some intra-trade, a diplomacy without Washington in CELAC, and diversified China markets. The dollar, IMF programmes and U.S. financial cycles still dominate crises. Cyclical politics and a reluctant Brazilian paymaster explain the ceiling.
Q2(b) · UPSC Mains 2025 · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
The withdrawal of the United States of America from the World Health Organization is set to have far-reaching impacts on global health. Reimagining the existing WHO is vital for the global health agenda. Discuss
India and the Global South
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Q6(c) · UPSC Mains 2024 · PSIR GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the potential role that India could play as the leader of the Global South in realising the goal of establishing a new international economic order in the 21st century.
India and the Global South
NIEO sought fairer trade, finance, technology and voice for developing countries; it stalled in the late 1970s. India’s potential is to convene the South (G20, Voice of Global South), defend WTO food space, and offer generics and digital public infrastructure. Quad-plus-BRICS seating lets India translate between South and G7. China is the capital competitor; India is not a global paymaster; neighbourhood gaps weaken the claim. Realistic leadership is coalition and agenda-setting toward a less overcentralised order.
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