Populism and the Retreat of Globalisation
VIEW EVENT DETAILSIn the 1990s, the general consensus among economists was that globalisation would revolutionise the world economy. The cornerstone of globalisation was free trade, which was associated with higher growth and poverty reduction. For example, in the decades since the economic liberalisation reforms of 1991, India has enjoyed a consistent growth rate of 6 to 7%. Yet, globalisation has brought with it many economic costs as well. Economists have pointed to the growing economic inequality - both across and within countries – as being a direct consequence of it. It is being increasingly accepted that the largest gains of globalisation have accrued only to a few – the emerging middle class in China and India, and to the wealthiest 1% in the West - to the detriment of their working classes. As a result, populist movements have sprung up across the political spectrum. On the left side of the spectrum, populist movements such as the Occupy protests directed their attacks against elite financial institutions. On the right side of the spectrum, populist movements in Western European countries like Italy, France, the UK, Germany, and Spain have been rapidly gaining momentum, rallying against both the establishment and ethnic minorities. President Trump’s campaign promises to pull the United States out of the Trans Pacific Partnership and to make immigration laws far more stringent could be seen as responsible in large part for his victory. In a recent article, Ashutosh Varshney, Director, Center for Contemporary South Asia, Brown University, argues that these populist movements represent an apparent retreat from globalization, but that its economic roots will be harder to reverse. While the flow of goods and labour might be easy to restrict, he argues, capital flows will be harder to contain.
The questions then that bear answering are - what form will this apparent retreat from globalisation take? Can the ongoing political protectionism be accompanied by a corresponding economic protectionism, and if so, to what extent? Join us in conversation with Ashutosh Varshney and Ridham Desai, Managing Director, Morgan Stanley India, as we attempt to distill the essence of the globalisation debate.
Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University, where he also directs the Center for Contemporary South Asia. Previously, he taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His books include 'Battles Half Won: India's Improbable Democracy' (2013), 'Collective Violence in Indonesia' (2009), 'Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India' (Yale 2002), 'India in the Era of Economic Reforms' (1999), and 'Democracy, Development and the Countryside: Urban-Rural Struggles in India' (Cambridge 1995). His research and teaching cover three areas: Ethnicity and Nationalism; Political Economy of Development; and South Asian Politics and Political Economy. He also contributes guest columns to newspapers and magazines and is a contributing editor to the Indian Express. He served on the former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's Millennium Task Force on Poverty (2002-5). He has also served as an adviser to the World Bank, UNDP and the Club of Madrid.
Ridham Desai is Managing Director of Morgan Stanley with 20 years at the firm. He heads Morgan Stanley’s Indian Equity Research team which is the top ranked team in the country. He is the country’s top ranked equity market strategists and has been consistently ranked among the best analysts in the country over his career spanning over 25 years. He has represented Morgan Stanley in several public debates on the equity market and the economy and is also a regular media contributor. He has led debates on the Indian economy since the beginning of the 1990s, penning several path breaking reports on the country. The latest such report is 'India’s Digital Leap: The Multi Trillion Dollar Opportunity' which discusses how the digitization of the country over the past three years is taking India into a new growth orbit, and how it could be the best investment destination in the world in the coming years.
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Event Details
Auditorium, National Gallery of Modern Art, Sir Cowasji Jehangir Public Hall, M.G. Road, Fort, Mumbai