The global ‘polytunity’
Cascading crises are a rare opportunity for the transformation of development institutions and ideas
Add BT as a preferred source
CONFLICTS, trade wars, inequality and democratic decay fill today’s headlines. Each crisis appears to be feeding the next, and it can feel as though the world is coming apart. Western leaders and thinkers have embraced a single word to capture this entanglement of threats: “polycrisis”.
Adam Tooze, the Columbia University historian who helped popularise the term, summarised its appeal in 2023: “Here is your fear, here is something that fundamentally distresses you. This is what it might be called.”
But when fear becomes the central theme, the result can only be angst and paralysis, as Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, observed after the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos.
TRENDING NOW
CSE Global independent director quits after clashes with chairman Eugene Lai over board refresh
What’s wrong with Orchard Road? Experts weigh in on the street’s cachet and its future
‘I felt like dying’: Thai Singha beer scion speaks up after disclosure of alleged sexual abuse
Rare brutalist Singapore house opens to the public before changing hands
