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Globalization

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International trade policies and new technologies facilitate the flow of people, information, and products across national borders, in turn encouraging the integration of regional economies, societies, and cultures. RAND research has investigated how globalization affects and has been affected by policymaking throughout the world.

Commentary

Eliminating Jobs or Strengthening the Economy? The Impact of Trade Policies on the American Worker

Aug 30, 2016

The enormous benefits of trade include economic growth, more variety for industry and consumers, and lower prices. But trade can displace some American workers. Training programs, relocation assistance, and wage insurance can help.
Commentary

Curbing Globalization Won't Halt the Rise of Inequality

Dec 14, 2016

Globalization may be one of many factors driving inequality. But ending trade agreements and throwing up trade barriers is unlikely to stop this trend.

Explore Globalization

Commentary

Why Russia Struggles to Feed Its Great-Power Addiction

Russia has become less cooperative and pursued more autarky in recent years. If Moscow continues on a path of resisting globalization, it could be left behind.

May 11, 2020
Commentary

Why COVID-19 Will Not Stop Globalization

Commentators have predicted that the outbreak will upend how we think about the flow of people and goods across borders and leave a markedly different world in its wake. But while COVID-19 will change the mechanics of globalization, it will likely not spell globalization's death knell.

Apr 13, 2020
Blog

COVID-19's Effects on Mental Health, Food Access, and Education: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on COVID-19 and mental health, food security challenges during the pandemic, supporting children while schools are closed, and more.

Apr 3, 2020
Commentary

After COVID-19: America Needs to Reengage with the World, Not Retreat

The COVID-19 pandemic should lead to a further strengthening of the national and international response capacity. The alternative of erecting barriers and closing America off to the world would leave it more vulnerable to the next big shock.

Apr 1, 2020
Commentary

Wake-Up Call for Russia

Deteriorating living standards have put Russians on edge, and fears of economic stagnation have risen. Russia has the capacity to do better. So why is the economy stagnating?

Mar 9, 2020
Commentary

Power and Legitimacy Go Hand in Hand

The United States has a truly distinct approach to power which has made all the difference in the post-war world. We abandon it at our peril.

Feb 21, 2020
Commentary

The Real U.S.-China Competition: Theories of Influence

Strategic competition between the United States and China has come to dominate U.S. foreign policy debates. That competition is multifaceted, but it may turn on a basic question: Which country has a more sustainable concept of national influence?

Jan 29, 2020
Commentary

China's Footprint in Europe

Tensions between Washington and Brussels may be helping China find a more receptive audience for its Belt and Road initiative. One of the central challenges for the United States and Europe will be to forge a more united approach to China's resurgence.

Jan 13, 2020
Commentary

A New Phase in Middle-Power Adjustment to U.S.–China Competition?

Observers of world order focus inordinately on intensifying strategic competition between the United States and China. Less examined, but no less important, is how their competition is affecting geopolitics outside of the two countries.

Nov 5, 2019
Commentary

The Emerging U.S.–China Strategic Competition and the Role of Trans-Atlantic Cooperation

When competing with China, what role should U.S. alliances, especially the transatlantic relationships the United States has with its European partners, play? This question is potentially decisive for whether or not any strategy adopted by the U.S. to compete with China will succeed or fail.

Oct 8, 2019
Commentary

The China Dream: Never Closer, yet Never More Elusive

To achieve its goals of national rejuvenation, China needs to become a true world power. But a softening economy and political gridlock make it seem less and less likely that Beijing will realize all of its objectives.

Oct 1, 2019
Commentary

How Not to Confront China

There are several key reasons why current U.S. policy toward China may not help advance America's competitiveness or enlist much support abroad. Most notably, the administration has yet to explain what it ultimately hopes to accomplish.

Sep 23, 2019
Commentary

Beyond Hawks and Doves: A Better Way to Debate U.S.–China Policy

The best long-term outcome for U.S.–China relations may be one in which inexorably intensifying competition coexists with occasionally fruitful cooperation. It is not the most inspiring result, to be sure, but it is preferable to unconstrained antagonism.

Sep 20, 2019
Commentary

Time to Return to the Basics of Statecraft

After two decades of setbacks abroad, it's time to ask whether the decline in American influence is irreversible. Ultimately, neither China nor Russia is responsible for these difficulties. Washington's failures have been self-inflicted, the result of flawed policy rather than any decisive shift in the global balance of power.

Sep 4, 2019
Blog

Theresa May, Emotional Learning, Teachers: RAND Weekly Recap

This weekly recap focuses on Theresa May's resignation, social and emotional learning, the value of a good teacher, and more.

May 31, 2019
Commentary

This Is Not a Great-Power Competition

The emerging conventional wisdom among foreign policy analysts in Washington is that a new era of great-power competition is upon us. But does that phrase really capture today's reality?

May 29, 2019
Commentary

What Ronald Reagan Can Teach Us About Dealing with Contemporary Russia

Politics loves its historical analogies and today, perhaps, there is no more common a comparison to the Trump presidency than the Reagan administration. Reagan's tenure was marked by his successful competition with the Soviet Union. Does Reagan provide a blueprint for triumphing over modern Russia?

May 13, 2019
Commentary

Russia Chooses Paupers as Partners, with Questionable Benefit

By leveraging the efficiencies of globalization and cultivating ties with prosperous partners, Russia could increase its economic potential and improve living standards for its people. And by engaging more positively with the world, it could gain influence in the forums that matter, such as the G20 and multilateral institutions.

Feb 14, 2019
Commentary

The Need to Think More Clearly About 'Great-Power Competition'

Today's world order is increasingly defined by competition between the United States and a host of major powers, especially China and Russia. Who is America's principal competitor and over what is it competing? What is America’s ultimate objective? And how will it prepare its economy and its society for infinite competition of an indefinite nature?

Feb 11, 2019
Commentary

Questioning the Presumption of a U.S.-China Power Transition

The United States occupies the central role in a world order that, while under growing duress, remains a central organizing framework in world affairs. There are many trajectories along which U.S.-China relations might evolve if China aims to displace the United States for global pre-eminence.

Jan 9, 2019

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