Our research argues that the return of multipolarity, recurring commodity bottlenecks and deepening public dissatisfaction are not separate developments.
Together, they amount to something bigger: a fourth systemic crisis of the modern era. Building on research we published in 2023, and drawing on the historian Charlie Maier, we describe this as a crisis of global integration. By that, we do not mean a bad recession or a single political shock. We mean a period in which strains in politics, economics, security and social order become tightly entangled, so that attempts to solve one problem create pressure elsewhere.
The 1910s were a crisis of representation, as political systems struggled to absorb rising demands for inclusion.
2020 - Crisis of global integration
We think the 2020s belong in that company. Internationally, the assumption of an uncontested American-led order no longer holds. Power is diffusing, nuclear risk makes direct confrontation between major powers too dangerous and competition is shifting into grey zones such as cyber conflict, sanctions, sabotage and coercive trade policy. The result is a more disordered world, not because events are random, but because no single power can any longer referee the system as it once did.
Economically, the foundations that once made globalisation feel frictionless are weakening. The world is moving from an era of relatively cheap and elastic supply to one in which bottlenecks in extraction, processing, shipping, grids and critical minerals generate recurrent shocks. At the same time, the net-zero transition, rearmament, AI and infrastructure renewal are all raising demand for energy and materials. Geopolitics is making supply even less flexible, through export controls, sanctions, stockpiling and industrial policy.
Domestically, political pressures are intensifying the strain. Many voters feel that living standards have stalled, inequality is widening and more visible, demographic change is unsettling and online life amplifies outrage and pessimism. That dissatisfaction fuels populism, volatility and scepticism towards global institutions and free-trade rules. Foreign policy becomes more transactional and economic policy becomes more tightly bound to national security.
Taken together, these forces mean that globalisation is no longer deepening smoothly. It is becoming more politicised, more fragmented and more shock-prone, with greater strategic weight placed on supply chains, energy security and domestic stability. That, for us, is the core of the current crisis of global integration. In the next section, we set out what that means for allocators.
Portfolio implications:
Implications for allocators
Portfolio construction needs to adapt to a world that is more fragmented, inflation-prone and volatile.