CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN GLOBALIZATION AND LOCALIZATION AS A STRUCTURING FACTOR OF CYCLICALITY IN SOCIETAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36004/nier.es.2025.1-05
JEL Classification:
UDC: 338.24+339.924
Andrii GRYTSENKO, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
doctor of economic Sciences, professor, State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine", Ukraine
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5030-864X,
and.gryt@gmail.com
Vasylyna PODLIESNA, doctor of economic Sciences, associate professor,
State Organization "Institute for Economics and Forecasting of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine", Ukraine
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8435-1013,
Received 20 March 2025
Accepted for publication 15 May 2025
SUMMARY
This article substantiates the central role of the contradiction between globalization and localization in shaping the cyclical nature of socio-economic development. It demonstrates that the most acute manifestation of this contradiction in the current phase of global development is the local-global conflict in Ukraine. The study argues that the contradictions between globalization and localization, once resolved at a certain level and in a specific form, become embedded in the foundation of subsequent phenomena and processes, thereby serving as structure-forming pillars. This mechanism underpins the cyclicality of public-economic development, including its military-economic dimensions.
The essence of the contradiction is explored through its characterization as the most developed form of the distinction inherent in jointly-divided labor, alongside the identification of the main historical forms in which these economic contradictions have manifested.
It is established that key manifestations of the globalization-localization contradiction include the competition among leading countries for global dominance and the persistence of inter-country inequality. During the crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles, such as long cycles of world politics, Kondratieff cycles, and cycles of hegemony - partial resolutions of these contradictions occur, accompanied by a reconfiguration of the global geopolitical system. The cyclical dynamics of globalization and localization align with long cycles of world politics and cycles of hegemony, particularly their crisis-militaristic phases: during “thirty-year world wars,” globalization processes decelerate and become disorganized; following their conclusion, globalization intensifies once again.
It is justified that in the modern world system, the deployment of crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles is beginning, taking on hybrid forms, which is primarily manifested in the unleashing of local-global conflicts, the combination of which forms a hybrid form of “global war”, after the completion of which a new world order will be established.
Keywords: globalization, localization, contradictions, jointly-divided labour, world-system, military-economic cycles, crisis-militaristic phases.
Introduction. The central contradiction of modernity lies in the tension between globalization—driven by advances in information and financial technologies—and the localization of material and labor resources, which cannot move through space at the same speed as financial and informational flows. This contradiction manifests and is resolved in various forms and spheres, including tensions between transnational corporations and nation-states, unipolar and multipolar world systems, globalization and regionalization, and between the individual as a biological being—bounded by space and time—and as a social being—unlimited by spatiotemporal constraints (e.g., Aristotle, Hegel, Marx, Keynes, and others continue to participate in contemporary philosophical and economic discourse, despite no longer existing physically or biologically). The global network allows any local entity to connect with all other components of the system.
The most acute manifestation of the contradiction between globalization and localization is evident in the Russian-Ukrainian war. Although geographically localized on Ukrainian territory, the conflict has acquired a global character due to the provision of military, diplomatic, economic, financial, and informational support from the USA and EU. It represents a local embodiment of a global conflict.
The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the contradictions between globalization and localization act as structure-forming forces driving the cyclicality of socio-economic development. The central hypothesis is that these contradictions, once resolved at a certain level and in a specific form, become embedded in the foundation of societal development, transforming into structural pillars that shape subsequent phenomena and processes—including military-economic cycles. To address this aim, it is first necessary to understand the structure of this contradiction and its main historical forms of development.
The various manifestations of the contradiction between globalization and localization have increasingly become the subject of targeted research. For example, this tension is examined within multinational enterprises, where globalization entails standardized operations aimed at cost efficiency and brand consistency, while localization involves adapting strategies to cultural and market-specific conditions—impacting both economic outcomes and marketing effectiveness (Turchaninova, 2025). The relationship between globalization processes and the degree of localization of economic activity has also been explored (Baris et al., 2022). Other studies assess the impact of globalization on local entities, including individuals, businesses, and states (Alkharafi & Alsabah, 2025), as well as the current state and consequences of globalization (Jakubik & Van Heuvelen, 2024).
Further research investigates the economic contradictions of globalization and localization through the lens of their historical development and resolution (Economic Contradictions of Globalization and Localization: Forms of Movement and Solutions, 2024). Related studies focus on military-economic cycles in the context of these contradictions, emphasizing the critical role of crisis-militaristic phases in the cyclical development of the world-system and the reconfiguration of the global geopolitical order (Podliesna, 2024).
This study employs the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete as its overarching methodological framework. This approach incorporates dialectical, logical-historical, and systemic methods, along with institutional, cyclical, world-systems, and problem-chronological analytical perspectives.
Sometimes globalization is analysed as an independent phenomenon, without relation to the manifestations of localization. However, globalization is only one side of the process, which always and everywhere has its other, opposite side, without which neither the process nor its sides exist. This opposite and integral side of globalization is localization. Formally, it is possible to describe various manifestations of globalization, as well as localization, without reference to their opposites, but it is impossible to understand the essence, internal logic and regularities of their development without this. The essence always consists in contradiction and is revealed through it. “Essence,” wrote G. Hegel, “is, firstly, a simple correlation with itself, pure identity. This is its definition, according to which it is rather the absence of definitions.
Secondly, the true definition is difference, partly as an external or indifferent difference, distinction in general, and partly as an opposite distinction, or opposition.
Thirdly, as contradiction, opposition is reflexed into itself and returns to its ground” (Hegel, 1971, p. 29).
Structure and forms of movement and resolution of contradictions
Contradiction follows logical stages of development, which are most fundamentally articulated by Hegel. Its movement begins with identity, which already contains an internal difference. For example, a commodity embodies the contradiction between exchange value and use value. A more accessible illustration for non-economists is that of a pregnant woman: she is identical with herself, yet within her exists a difference—her unborn child.
This internal difference then transforms into distinction. In the commodity example, distinction is represented by money, which stands near the commodity and represents its value, rather than being part of it. Both the commodity and money retain within themselves the duality of exchange value and use value—although in the case of money, its use value lies in its capacity to serve as exchange value.
At a further stage, difference—containing identity—and identity—containing difference—relate to each other not merely as distinction, but as opposites, wherein each negates and presupposes the other. As Hegel observed: “Distinction, whose indifferent sides are, just as the essence wholly, only moments as moments of one negative unity, is the opposite” (Hegel, 1971, p. 44).
Returning to the example of the pregnant woman, the distinction becomes the opposition between mother and child after birth. Their subsequent life experiences—upbringing, conflicts, reconciliation, marriage—represent the ongoing movement and resolution of that contradiction.
Hegel summarizes the development of contradiction as follows: “In general, difference contains both its sides as moments; in distinction, they indifferently disintegrate; in contradiction, as such, they are the sides of difference, defined only through each other—hence only as moments—but also defined in themselves, indifferent to and excluding each other: they are independent reflective determinations...
Since an independent reflective determination excludes the other in the same relation in which it contains the other (and therefore is independent), it, possessing independence, excludes from itself its own independence, as the latter consists in containing its opposite determination within itself. The independent reflective definition is thus a contradiction” (Hegel, 1971, p. 55).
The resolution of contradictions is a dynamic process—a mutual transformation of opposites. It is “the continuous disappearance of the opposite [moments] in themselves” (Hegel, 1971, p. 57). This, in general, is how real contradictions are resolved (Marx & Engels, 1955–1983, pp. 113–114). Once resolved, a contradiction becomes the ground for new processes and contradictions. As Hegel wrote: “The resolved contradiction is, consequently, the ground—the essence as the unity of the positive and the negative” (Hegel, 1971, p. 60).
Contradictions are resolved naturally through the emergence of new formations in which opposites find channels for movement, transformation, and synthesis. For instance, the contradiction between use value and exchange value is resolved in money and in the development of commodity-money circulation. Similarly, the contradiction between real money as a measure of value and monetary tokens that lack intrinsic value is resolved through the creation of central banks, which ensure the stability of the monetary system. When contradictions remain unresolved, the subject (along with its contradictions, which constitute its essence) collapses.
Thus, any development begins with identity, which contains internal difference; this difference, once it extends beyond the bounds of identity, becomes distinction, and eventually evolves into opposition. The mutual mediation of opposites—contradiction—serves as the driving force behind the development of the subject of study. Contradiction is the unity of identity and difference. It is identity mediated by difference and difference mediated by identity—both aspects of the same entity. Unity, in this sense, is identity enriched and transformed through difference.
This transformation—identity → difference → contradiction—is the fundamental form of all development. It reproduces itself like a cell within every subsequent elaboration of the subject. The internal movement of contradiction through the dialectic of identity and difference takes on the forms of absolute difference, distinction, and opposition.
These regular stages of contradiction are inherent in all integral phenomena and express the unfolding of their essence. However, they do not function as a mechanical key that can be applied universally without context. Rather, they serve as a spotlight, illuminating the subject of research in its real, dynamic complexity and allowing us to grasp its various transformed forms without becoming lost in their multiplicity and contradictions.
This methodological approach will now be applied to the study of the contradictions between globalization and localization as a structure-forming factor in the cyclical development of public-economic systems.
Jointly-divided labour as a starting point and main historical forms of the development of economic contradictions of globalization and localization
The contradiction of globalization and localization is the most developed form of the difference of jointly-divided labour as a cell from which the socio-economic history of mankind begins (Grytsenko, 2014, pp. 264-269, 323-346). It is from it, as it is proved by social science, that man, division of labour and localization historically develop from the side of division, and society, cooperation of labour and globalization from the side of jointness. As a result of development, jointness reaches its highest historical result in globalization, and division - in localization.
The development of relations of jointness to the global and division to the local level is an interconnected process passing through logic stages. Labour as an activity of people aimed at adaptation and processing of objects of nature for satisfaction of human requirement also historically develops. It has two fundamental elements in its internal structure (in the aspect of delimitation between the public-human and natural-technical moments): 1) goal-setting and 2) work. Goal-setting remains a purely human activity which underlies human subjectivity, while work is an energetic process that can be separated from man and, thanks to the mechanization and automation of production processes, placed near to him. Human activity, therefore, largely loses the characteristics of labour as work, remaining predominantly activity as purposefulness. The cybernetization of management processes brings automation to the level of formal-logical operations, but does not touch the fundamental - goal-setting. A human person remains a human person as long as he is a actor subject setting his own goals, including artificial intelligence. If he loses this, he ceases to be a subject, turning into a tool, a means of achieving the goals of another subject.
From the point of view of the development of the correlation of jointness and division in connection with technological progress can distinguish: simple cooperation, manufactory and machine production. In simple cooperation, the correlation of jointness and division is an identity that includes difference. People work jointly collectively. This means that all labour is divided among them, and each performs only a part of the labour which must be coordinated, combined with other parts. The compatibility of labour at the same time means its division. It is one and the same labour, which in definition of jointly-divided labour is an identity that includes difference. In manufactory, which is based on the division of labour and the production of a partial product by different workers, the division of labour and its jointness are different relations, separated in space and time. Their jointness is not achieved directly, as in cooperation, but indirectly - through the produced partial product. Jointness and division here remain at the stage of distinction. Finally, when the development of the division of labour and exchange reaches the point of establishing of the dominance of commodity-money relations, which corresponds to the capitalist mode of production and the transition to large-scale machine production, the division represented by the produced commodity and its public jointness (the possibility of its inclusion in the general process of public reproduction through sale on the market) represented by money as a universal equivalent., become opposites, mutually exclusive and presupposing each other.
The emergence of large-scale machine production in this process, as is known, becomes the material basis for the periodicity of crises, the main cause of which is the contradiction between the public character of labour, as a manifestation of globalization, and private-capitalist appropriation, as a manifestation of localizations. Since that time, the movement of the contradictions between globalization and localizations in the sphere of the economy acquires a natural cyclical character. Although cyclicality is not limited to this. Its manifestations are diverse.
The above-described movement of the relationship of jointness and division occurs on the basis of division: on the basis of division of labour and market development. But there is an opposite process of movement of the relationship of jointness and division on the basis of jointness. It begins with the subjectivization of the function of representing common interests and ensuring their jointness, which is a process of management. Initially this is expressed in the selection of leaders in the process of cooperative labour. Leaders had more experience and were better at ensuring coordination and success of actions. Then councils of leaders and similar formations arise, which had to better ensure the realization of common interests of the members of the corresponding social formation. And, finally, the state arises as a special institution for representing the common interests of the members of society.
These two lines of development of the ratio of jointness and division have their own history of relationship. In primitive society, the lines of development of jointness and division are practically identical; they are in a state of syncretism. In further history, the development of the state, as a representative of common interests and a subject of society management, is separated from the development of simple commodity production and commodity-money relations, which have private interest as their ground. These processes become different, only externally interacting with each other. In principle, commodity production can exist without the state, and the state - without commodity production.
Finally, in the conditions of capitalist society, where market relations acquire a universal character and the state relies on a market economy, the market and the state become complementary opposites, excluding and presupposing each other. The market penetrates the state as its own element, because the revenues and expenses of the state budget, which financially ensure all activities of the state, are formed in monetary form, and the state is present in the market not only as a regulator, but also as a guarantor of the legality of each market agreement and the rights of its subjects.
Therefore, long-standing discussions about how much government should be in the economy are based on almost untrue abstractions. First, the market is attributed the ability to solve all economic problems, and when it’s revealed that it cannot, it is called a market failure. This is the same as calling the failure of a hippopotamus the inability to fly. Such a property is not in its nature, as well as the market is only a mechanism for coordinating private interests, not for representing the interests of society as a whole, which by its nature the state should do. The market and the state must fully perform their own functions. Therefore, instead of discussing how much the state should be in the economy, should proceed from the necessity of their complementary interaction (Grytsenko, 2021).
Thus, the market and the state became opposite embodiments of jointly-divided labour. Further, the division of labour goes beyond national states and forms a global market, while states always remain national and, in this sense, local entities limited by certain territories, material and human resources.
The contradiction of globalization and localization is the most developed form of the difference of jointly-divided labour. Before the development of the international division of labour and economic development of the world space, the contradiction of globalization and localization developed in an implicit form, and only the era of major geographical discoveries and the formation of the world market transformed this contradiction into an open and very intensive process, which also has natural stages of development.
The development of globalization in its explicit and clearly defined forms began with trade and the migration of human resources, both of which altered spatial localization within the global economic landscape. Subsequently, the migration of capital—as a form of value that generates surplus value—took precedence. Capital, moving through economic space, either locates the necessary localized resources or relocates them. At this stage, globalization shifted from the movement of tangible resources to the financial sphere.
Eventually, with the rise of the information-network economy and the gradual transformation of information into the primary resource and output of production, globalization entered the virtual sphere, where conventional notions of space and time are redefined. Information and financial resources—though physically localized and temporally dispersed—can now be integrated into a single production process that occurs here and now in virtual space. This represents the localization of global space-time, the local manifestation of the global, and the realization of the local within the global.
At the same time, the cyclical manifestations of the contradiction between globalization and localization across different societal spheres have grown increasingly complex.
The military-economic component of cyclicality in societal and economic development in the context of the contradiction between globalization and localization.
Since the emergence of the capitalist world-system (the "long" 16th century, i.e., around 1450) and throughout its development to the present day, there has been a cyclical alternation between periods of intensified globalization and phases of disintegration, during which localization processes strengthen. The cyclical dynamics of the development of the capitalist world system were most clearly manifested in the military-political and economic situation of the leading countries of Western European civilization, which had a decisive influence on the pace and direction of development of other civilizations.
Under capitalism, global cycles are shaped by the dynamics of the contradictory interaction between the political and economic systems of the most developed countries at the core of the capitalist world system. This dynamic inevitably influences the development of the rest of the world, setting its cyclical rhythm, which has individual characteristics in each country on the semi-periphery and periphery of the capitalist world system. This creates the basis for the formation and periodic partial resolution of contradictions between globalization processes and localization.
Globalization, which primarily benefits the leading countries of Western civilization, often clashes with localization, which provides a basis for developing and emerging market countries to assert their political and economic interests. Thus, inter-country inequality is not only a core driver but also a manifestation of the contradiction between globalization and localization. The partial resolution of the contradiction between globalization and localization, and as a result, the reformatting of the global geopolitical system, is taking place in the process of the unfolding of the crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles, among which long cycles of world politics, Kondratiev cycles, and cycles of hegemony play a decisive role.
In the course of inter-civilizational competition (between Western European, Slavic, Chinese, Hindu, Islamic, Latin American, Japanese, and African civilizations), there are periodic periods of profound intensification of contradictions between their leading countries, caused by the struggle for world leadership, and thus also between the allies and satellite countries of the opposing sides.
Historically, the resolution of such contradictions has occurred through military means, in the form of “proto-global” and “global” wars. The totality of military-political and socio-economic processes arising during the aggravation and resolution of these contradictions defines the crisis-militaristic phases of global military-economic cycles. These unfold through military conflicts whose outcomes shape the partial resolution of inter-civilizational contradictions and determine the balance of power within regional and global geopolitical systems (Podliesna, 2024).
The main result of the crisis-militaristic phases of global military-economic cycles is the establishment of the hegemony of a new leader of the global geopolitical system, or the systemic transformation of the old leader who has retained its dominance (Podliesna, 2022). The hegemon of the global geopolitical system determines the long-term direction of civilization's development. Each historical form of geopolitical domination by the leader of the world system, which was established as a result of a “proto-global” or “global” war, gave rise to the preconditions for the next war - contradictions caused by inter-civilizational, inter-country, and, at the deepest level, inter-class inequality. Inter-civilizational and inter-country inequality is generated, first and foremost, by the hierarchical nature of the world system, in which, according to I. Wallerstein, hegemonic state sets the rules of the game for the entire inter-state system, dominates the world economy, is the leader in production, trade, and finance, achieves political decisions that are convenient for it, using military force minimally, while being militarily strong, and forms the cultural lexicon used by the whole world (Wallerstein, 2004).
The allies of the hegemon also enjoy certain privileges in conducting economic and political activities at the global level, which prompts other countries, deprived of such advantages, to form formal and informal local coalitions. Thus, inter-country inequality is generated by the hierarchical nature of the global geopolitical system and largely expresses and determines the contradiction between globalization and localization.
In the unfolding of military-economic cycles as a mechanism for expressing and resolving this contradiction, not only socio-economic and military-political, but also civilizational value-based contradictions play a critical role. Although capitalism seeks to dissolve civilizational boundaries by imposing institutional uniformity and subordinating all societies to its economic logic, many non-Western civilizations, though integrated into Westernized globalization, retain essential civilizational characteristics. This persistence reinforces the globalization-localization contradiction—even amid comprehensive digitalization, which enhances global connectivity and increases the soft power potential of technologically advanced states.
Within the capitalist world-system, information confrontation has become a core dimension of geopolitical rivalry. This periodically escalates into active information wars, often coinciding with the crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles. These confrontations tend to intensify prior to and during such phases, providing the ideological groundwork for military conflict, which in the 21st century increasingly takes hybrid forms.
Today, with the completion of the “coalition building” phase in the unfolding of the current long cycle of world politics and the approach of the “macrodecision” phase, the information confrontation between the leading actors in geopolitics is becoming a global information war, in which inter-civilizational value conflicts are becoming increasingly pronounced and vivid.
The cyclical dynamics of globalization and localization under industrial capitalism (18th century – first half of the 20th century), as well as under the formation of the post-industrial economy (1960s to the present day) is coordinated with the unfolding of cycles of hegemony and long cycles of world politics. This coordination is manifested, first and foremost, in the slowdown and disorganization of globalization processes in the context of prolonged intensification of global military-political confrontation – the “thirty-year world wars” – and in the subsequent wave of intensified globalization processes following the end of each successive “thirty-year world war.”
For instance, the “macrodecision” phases of the 8th and 9th long cycles of world politics (1792–1815 and 1914–1945, respectively) (Modelski, 1995) correspond to the chronology of two “thirty-year world wars” 18–20 th century that resulted in British hegemony in the 19th century (following the Napoleonic Wars) and U.S. hegemony in the mid-20th century (following the Euro-Asian wars of 1914–1945) (Wallerstein, 1983).
During the Napoleonic Wars, the Continental Blockade – a system of economic and political sanctions imposed by Emperor Napoleon I in 1806 against Great Britain –The Treaty of Tilsit (June 25, 1807) and the decision by the United States to close its market to all parties involved in the war in Europe led to the disruption of international trade due to the artificial disruption of trade relations. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were a period of culmination of globalization processes. This was due to the scientific and technological revolution, which stimulated an increase in world trade, capital flows, and migration flows between Western Europe and America.
Between the First and Second World Wars, international trade reduced significantly. The Great Depression of the 1930s led to increased government regulation. Free trade and the free movement of capital were replaced by trade protectionism, the need to form a new international financial system became apparent. The period between the two world wars in the 20th century was characterized by a significant slowdown in globalization processes.
The cyclical nature of global political and economic development is clearly reflected in the cyclical change of international trade regimes, coordinated with the unfolding of geopolitical processes in such a way that during the crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles, foreign trade relations are conducted in accordance with protectionist policies, and after their completion, the capitalist world system enters another wave of free trade, in a form that is adequate to the specific historical conditions (Table. 1).
Table 1. Coordination of international trade regimes
with geopolitical cyclicality in the context of globalization and localization
Sourse: Compiled on the basis of: Modelski, G. (1995). The Evolution of Global Politics. Journal of World-Systems Research, 1(7), 424-467. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.1995.38
The British Empire, as the hegemon of the world-system in results the “macrodecision” phases of the 7th and 8th long cycles of world politics (1688–1714 and 1792–1815, respectively) (Modelski, 1995), and having achieved undisputed industrial leadership by the mid-19th century, transitioned from a protectionist trade policy to the global promotion of free trade principles, which proved highly advantageous given its technological superiority.
In the 20th century, during the crisis-militaristic phase of the world-system's cyclical development—encompassing the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War—protectionism once again prevailed, driven by the desire of opposing geopolitical blocs to achieve relative autarky. Following the conclusion of the “macrodecision” phase of the ninth long cycle of world politics, the United States emerged as the dominant force in the capitalist world-system, establishing political-economic, cultural-ideological, and technological leadership. It was the U.S. that initiated and became the primary driver of a new wave of globalization, characterized by the liberalization of international trade.
Today, the “macrodecision” phase of the tenth long cycle of world politics is beginning to unfold, and the global economy is entering a renewed period of protectionism. One of the most significant drivers of this trend is the tariff and sanctions policy of the United States, which is now actively engaged in a struggle to retain its status as global leader. Local-global conflicts—new (Ukraine) and ongoing or reignited (Syria, the armed conflict in Gaza, India–Pakistan)—constitute components of a hybrid “global war”, which is expected to bring about the resolution of aggravated geopolitical contradictions and the emergence of a new global geopolitical hierarchy. Following this, and consistent with the historical pattern of cyclical alternation between free trade and protectionism, a new phase of liberalized international trade is likely to begin, reigniting globalization in forms suited to the information-network society.
The local-global conflict in the European region, which is currently unfolding in the form of a large-scale Russian-Ukrainian military-political conflict, has the potential to initiate a military confrontation of antagonistic military-political blocs at the global level.
Іn many respects caused by the fact that, according to Z. Brzezinski (2016), in Eurasia, which occupies an axial position in geopolitical terms and plays the role of a chessboard on which the struggle for world domination takes place, Ukraine is such a geopolitical center, without control over which Russia is not able to recreate the Eurasian empire.
Based on the chronology of the deployment of the "macrodecision" phases of long cycles of world politics, which in historical retrospect lasted at least 30 years, in 2026-2050 there will be a militarization of the economies and societies of countries - active participants in the geopolitical standoff.
It was the local-global conflict in Ukraine that initiated a new cycle of economic militarization, which is primarily reflected in the growth of arms sales on a global scale, as well as in the adoption by leading geopolitical actors of long-term strategic plans for the development of the defense industry and the enhancement of defense capabilities. In particular, the EU has adopted an ambitious action plan to strengthen its security and defense policy until 2030 – the defense concept “Strategic Compass for Security and Defense”, as well as the “Strategic Agenda for 2024-2029”, which addresses improving conditions for the expansion of the European defense industry (European Parliament, 2024).
The war in Ukraine has also triggered significant disruptions in global financial, food, and energy flows, slowing the pace of globalization (Stanley, 2023) and laying the groundwork for another wave of protectionism in the cyclical development of the global economy.
After World War II, a bipolar world emerged, existing in a state of “cold war” and consisting of the capitalist world system and the geopolitical bloc of socialist countries. Despite the hostility of the Cold War, globalization continued, shaped by the economic and political interaction between these opposing blocs. The capitalist component of globalization evolved within the capitalist world-system, driven by the expansion of transnational capital, while within the socialist bloc, globalization took a different form—one rooted in the economic integration of centrally planned economies, but also in their need for trade with the capitalist world.
The necessity for inter-bloc trade was primarily driven by scientific and technological progress, whose implementation required both resources and knowledge exchange. Thus, despite ideological confrontation and constant geopolitical rivalry, the cyclical civilizational process necessitated a degree of cooperation.
The USSR and its allies played a significant—and at times decisive—role in shaping the cyclical dynamics of the capitalist world-system. Their influence was most pronounced during the Second World War, the outcome of which redefined the global geopolitical structure and shaped the economic environment of the ninth long cycle of world politics. According to J. Modelski (1995), the “macrodecision” phase of this ninth cycle concluded with the establishment of U.S. global hegemony.
However, this hegemony was fully realized only after the collapse of the USSR—the leading power of the Eastern bloc—and lasted until the onset of the 2008 global economic crisis (the Great Recession). That crisis marked the beginning of a series of political and economic developments that have since contributed to the current domestic instability in the United States and the gradual erosion of its uncontested leadership in the global system.
Structural Demographic Theory (SDT) offers tools to forecast future dynamics of social unrest and political violence within specific societal systems. In 2010, using SDT, P. Turchin predicted that “the next decade is likely to be a period of growing instability in the United States and Western Europe.” This forecast was based on a model that quantified structural drivers of socio-political instability, such as stagnating or declining real wages, a widening gap between rich and poor, overproduction of university graduates, rising public debt, and declining trust in public institutions. According to this model, the year 2020 was expected to mark a sharp spike in instability—a prediction that was fully realized (Turchin, 2021).
In general, P. Turchin's works suggest that the modern political and economic system of the United States exists in conditions where the century cycle, the cycle of fathers and children, the “youth hump”, and the Kondratiev cycle overlap in such a way that their pressure on the structure of society will peak around 2020. Under such conditions, internal instability has intensified and internal contradictions within the leader of the modern world system, the US, have become more acute, leading to the total destabilization of the global geopolitical system and the beginning of a crisis-militaristic stage in its cyclical development, which is what we are witnessing today.
The onset of this crisis-militaristic phase is also shaped by demographic processes—particularly record global population growth—and the escalating competition for resources, including those essential to the Fourth Industrial Revolution’s core innovations.
In this context, J. Goldstone’s Structural Demographic Theory is particularly relevant. Goldstone argues that population growth, while not directly causing state crises, destabilizes states by straining economic, political, and social institutions (Turchin, 2003). The theory of “structural-demographic cycles” suggests that periods of crisis in their unfolding are primarily resource crises, one of the determining factors in their formation being increased competition for resources, primarily factional struggle among elites.
At the global level, this resource competition manifests in cyclical rivalries among major geopolitical actors for spheres of influence. Today, one of the factors exacerbating global geopolitical confrontation is the rapid development of the digital economy, which is becoming increasingly resource-intensive.
As digital devices become more complex, they require a broader range of mineral inputs: in 1960, phones were made with 10 elements from the periodic table; in 1990, 27; and by 2021, 63. Consequently, demand for critical minerals—essential to both digital and low-carbon technologies—is rising dramatically. For instance, the World Bank projects that demand for cobalt, graphite, and lithium could increase by 500% by 2050. Access to these minerals is now a strategic priority for many nations, intensifying global competition and elevating the risk of geopolitical conflict (UNCTAD, 2024).
Today, global instability has reached a level of turbulence. The USA, UK, and EU countries, on one side, and post-Soviet states—particularly Russia—and China, on the other, act as catalysts for escalating geopolitical rivalry to the point of hybrid warfare. In the most general sense, there is currently an intensification of contradictions between the civilization of the global West and the civilization of the global East, which means that the project of Westernized globalization is undergoing a profound crisis. In the context of global cyclicality, this likely marks the end of the long-standing dominance of Western European civilization.
Such phases of long cycles of world politics as “coalition building” and “macrodecision” are periods of slowdown in globalization processes and intensification of localization trends. In conditions of “coalition building,” the decentralization of the world system intensifies, the weakening of the global leader becomes increasingly apparent, states that are potential contenders for global leadership grow stronger, and geopolitical alliances are reformatted. All of which affects the global economy and the cultural and information space, where the unquestionable authority of the global leader is being undermined.
Historically, macrodecision phases have taken the form of 30-year global confrontations between opposing coalitions—though today more than two such coalitions may be involved. In these prolonged "global wars," geopolitical blocs aim for relative economic self-sufficiency (to the extent possible under capitalism) and erect ideological and cultural “iron curtains.” These trends not only slow down globalization but may also reverse it. Within each of the phases of “coalition building” and “macrodecision”, which slow down globalization and promote localization, contradictions arise between the interests of capital, whose ability to accumulate is enhanced by globalization in non-military spheres of public life, and the interests of capital that profits from militarization.
No matter how powerful military-industrial capital may be, non-military spheres of social production are more important for the process of social reproduction and, in general, for ensuring the viability of society. Therefore, crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles are inevitably followed by phases of post-war recovery and economic growth, and thus by a revival and subsequent intensification of globalization processes, which renews the position of non-militaristic capital.
From the beginning of the “long 16th century” to the present day, Western civilization has achieved the greatest success in inter-civilizational competition, implementing a globalization project since the Age of Discovery, in which it occupied a dominant position, was a technological and economic leader, and set ideological and cultural benchmarks for development for the whole world and Western European values have generally become the benchmark for civilizational progress.
However, now that the world system has entered another crisis-militaristic period of its cyclical development, Slavic, Chinese, and Hindu civilizations, based on the mobilization and synergy of their collective actions, are capable of creating an alternative to the dominance of Western civilization and, therefore, to the Westernized model of globalization.
CONCLUSIONS
Thus, the contradictions between globalization and localization—historically rooted in the development of the jointly divided labor system serve as a source of progressive societal development and underlie its cyclical nature. These contradictions manifest across different stages of societal evolution in various forms, including the cyclical dynamic of the “peace-war” system, which has now acquired a hybrid character due to the growing significance of the military-economic dimension of global cycles.
Today, the intensification of the contradictions between globalization and localization has led to a critical escalation in the geopolitical confrontation among leading global actors vying for world leadership. Since the onset of the “long 16th century”, the dominant powers of the world-system have been countries of Western European civilization. In the current circumstances, at the beginning of the “macrodecision” phase of the 10th long cycle of world politics, the leading countries of all other — non-Western — civilizations are entering the struggle for world leadership, and this struggle will continue for about 20-30 years.
The present crisis-militaristic stage of the world-system’s cyclical development is driving greater integration within military-political blocs, thereby reinforcing processes of localization. At the same time, under the conditions of transnational capitalism, even opposing blocs are compelled to maintain trade and economic relations to prevent the collapse of their political-economic systems. Therefore, economic globalization is slowing down but not stopping, even amid the unfolding of another crisis-militaristic phase in the cyclical development of the world system, while transnational capital increases its profits through militarization and benefits from the redistribution of spheres of influence. In other words, today globalization, like localization, is taking place in hybrid forms.
The increasing complexity of the modern capitalist world-system, the expansion of information-network forms of interaction among geopolitical actors, and the mounting instability resulting from systemic contradictions—particularly between globalization and localization—have led global cyclical processes to acquire emergent forms. These are characterized by unpredictable interactions among geopolitical actors and the use of unconventional methods for resolving contradictions and conflicts.
Currently, the deployment of crisis-militaristic phases of global cycles is taking place in hybrid forms, already evident in the emergence of local-global conflicts whose cumulative effect constitutes a hybrid form of “global war.” This serves as the expression of the “macrodecision” phase of the long cycle of world politics.
The most significant influence on global cyclical dynamics today is exerted by the local-global conflict in Ukraine, which is unfolding in the form of a large-scale Russian-Ukrainian military-political conflict, the intensified hybrid conflict in Syria, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which alternates between escalation and de-escalation. In April 2025, another escalation of the Indo-Pakistani conflict began, followed by the Iranian-Israeli conflict in June 2025.
These military-political conflicts are both a concentrated expression of the intensification of geopolitical contradictions generated by the struggle of leading geopolitical actors for hegemony in the world system, which allows them to derive the greatest benefit from globalization, and a means of partially resolving them. The localization of military actions is used as a tool to reduce the scale of the negative consequences of the military method of resolving contradictions that have intensified in the global geopolitical system. At the same time, the concentration of military violence and its consequences in specific countries creates a global information effect in the context of global information connectivity, which influences to one degree or another the political processes and economic conditions of all countries in the world. In other words, there is a completely contradictory, interdependent, cyclical unfolding of global and local processes that shapes the development of civilization as a whole.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The scientific contribution of the co-author, Doctor of Economics, Professor A. Grуtsenko, was made within the framework of the Project "Formation of Structural Pillars of the War and Post-War Economic Development of Ukraine" (state registration No. 0125U000280).
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