International relations specialists discussed the current challenges of a constantly changing world.
Within the framework of the XVII National Congress of Political Science, which took place at the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations of the Universidad Nacional de Rosario, leading international relations specialists analyzed the place of the Global South in the current scenario of geoeconomic fragmentation.
The panel included Matías Spektor, professor and founder of the School of International Relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil); Julieta Zelicovich and Esteban Actis, researchers at the National University of Rio de Janeiro (UNR); Federico Merke, researcher at the Universidad de Santiago (UdeSA) and the National Council for Research in the Defense of the Caribbean (CONICET); and Andrés Malamud, an Argentine political scientist based at the University of Lisbon.
Spektor proposed three key narratives for understanding the concept of the Global South. The first conceives it as an eminently political construct, emerging as a project of resistance to the advance of economic liberalism in the late 1970s. However, he cautioned that this coalition is fragile and has failed to resolve its collective action problems, making it vulnerable to absorption by the liberal West.
The second, more radical narrative questions the foundations of the Western-based international order. Although more ambitious, it was also weakened by the globalization of the 1990s and early 2000s. In both cases, Spektor said, the Global South appears as a fragmented actor with little capacity for coordination.
Finally, he presented a contemporary interpretation that posits that the Global South has not only been a recipient of norms, but a co-author of the international order. “What none of these three perspectives does is empirically examine what the Global South is,” he argued. He added: “There is no fracture with globalization. In the 2000s, convergence increased, not decreased.”
For his part, Federico Merke stated that the Global South "is an uncomfortable mirror for the North, because it reminds it that modernity and development were not equal for everyone." However, he emphasized that it is not a homogeneous collective actor, but rather a constellation of small coalitions with diverse interests. To this, Malamud added that
During her speech, Merke identified six phenomena that explain the current geopolitical fragmentation: the diffusion of power, the loss of adherence to rules, the rise of minilateralism, the perception of interdependence as a threat, the loss of legitimacy of neoliberalism—especially in the Global South—and the growing internal polarization in core countries. "It is very difficult to understand geopolitical fragmentation without understanding how the attitudes of the average voter in those countries have changed," she noted.
Malamud reaffirmed that today, "voting is about forging alliances" because in that decision, "we are signaling who our country is going to ally with." He explained that this was previously unthinkable, but that today, "we can go from left to right" in a very short time without it being such a striking phenomenon. "It's no longer the international system, but the state. International decisions are made at the ballot box; this wasn't something that used to happen."
He also reflected on Latin America's role in this scenario, recalling that not so many years ago, if there was a government that was decidedly anti-United States, sooner or later it would be muddied or directly subjected to military intervention. However, the political scientist emphasized that today, "we can have any president we want and nothing will happen," since while there is autonomy to "do what we want, we no longer depend on agents but on systems, and we have to respond to the commodities market and interest rates."
New dynamics in 2025
Julieta Zelicovich analyzed the impact of Donald Trump's return to the presidency of the United States. She noted that, since his inauguration at the beginning of this year, there has been a more intense use of instruments of economic coercion to achieve short-term political objectives. "Washington no longer has resources for positive payments, incentives. It's running out of carrots to position itself vis-à-vis the Global South. I don't think we're in a scenario where Washington has raised the price of getting closer to China, but rather it has complicated the relationship with Washington itself. And so I think that in an international context where we speak of geopolitical fragmentation, its main feature is greater risk and the erosion of rules," she explained.
From this perspective, he argued that the greatest challenge in 2025 lies in how countries in the Global South redesign their foreign policy. "It's not just about positioning themselves in the face of the rivalry between the United States and China, but about building greater autonomy in their international integration," he said. Along these lines, he highlighted the role of Brazil, which has taken a more active role in multilateral forums, such as the recent Leaders' Summit for Democracy in Chile.
“The Global South retains its agency: it is impossible to imagine a way out of Trumpism without its participation,” Zelicovich emphasized. However, he acknowledged that uncertainty persists regarding its actual capacity to effectively coordinate policies.
Malamud added that to see the full picture, one must understand that there is significant social polarization today. “There is a global system that wasn't working perfectly. For example, there is resentment among people who live in the central United States against those who live on the coasts. We are also facing a strong structure of cancellation. We are facing a new generation that is more reactionary than the previous one. It's one of the many reasons why Trump won again.”
Geoeconomic fragmentation and new actors
Esteban Actis revived the concept of "geoeconomic fragmentation," coined by the IMF in 2023, which describes a world increasingly divided for reasons of strategy, national security, and self-sufficiency. He explained that this fragmentation is most strongly expressed in sectors such as technology and minerals: "Today, the entire technological chain is permeated by this logic," he stated.
Competition between the United States and China in areas such as rare earths and artificial intelligence chips opens up opportunities for certain countries in the Global South. Actis called them "connector states" (such as Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia), which function as intermediate links in global value chains. In Latin America, he mentioned the cases of Costa Rica and Paraguay as examples of active strategies in the technology field. Argentina, meanwhile, has potential in sectors such as data centers and minerals, although, he warned, "it must move faster in its definitions."
He also noted that "we must understand the room for maneuver that is allowed" and that the distrust generated in Europe by Trump's return is very strong. Finally, he highlighted the pragmatic and dual attitude of countries like Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, which manage to establish ties with both poles of power. "Indonesia seeks to participate in both the BRICS and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Saudi Arabia wants to become an artificial intelligence hub alongside the United States and a key player in the energy transition alongside China," he concluded.
Journalist: Gonzalo J. García/ Photograph courtesy of the Communications and Media Management Secretariat of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations.