Major recent events have amplified globalisation’s failures: broken supply chains, food and energy inflation, and vaccine inequity due to intellectual property rights that serve to funnel pandemic profits to a few multinational companies. Proposed responses to these problems have ranged from “reshoring” or “friend-shoring” production to enacting “industrial policies to increase country capacities to produce” (Stiglitz, 2022). It seems that the unfettered endorsement of globalization has given way to the recognition that at least some national borders are necessary for economic development and security. 

Has globalisation reached its zenith? How can we better manage its decline? In this vein, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung’s (KAS) Regional Economic Programme Asia (SOPAS) has published a five-paper “Deglobalisation Essay series” which focuses on the following topic: How has deglobalisation impacted economies and economic policy?

The first in the Deglobalisation Essay Series paper, “Open Strategic Autonomy: The European Approach for Stable Supply Chains” looks into how the European Union has used the concept of open strategic autonomy to address the risks of political and economic dependencies and ensure stable supply chains.