Neoliberal geopolitics fractures cooperation: How authoritarianism, corporate capture and colonial legacies undermine global governance
Original framing: “Global cooperation under pressure—new report on shaping reforms” — Phys.org
The report’s framing is a classic *Eshu* trickster move—it offers a 'nuanced' picture of cooperation while obscuring the deeper joke: that 'reform' is just neoliberalism’s latest rebrand. Coyote might ask, *Why do we assume cooperation must be led by states or corporations?* Anansi would weave a tale where the 'global order' is a spider’s web, and the real question is *who gets eaten when the wind blows*. The solemnity of 'geopolitical rivalry' conceals the absurdity of a system where the same elites who profit from war also sell 'peacekeeping' drones. Bakhtian carnival might invert the headline: *'Global Cooperation Under Pressure—Because Some People Really, Really Don’t Want It.'*
The erosion of global cooperation is not a failure of diplomacy but a feature of a system designed to concentrate power in the hands of those who profit from fragmentation—whether through war, debt, or ecological destruction.
Historical patterns reveal that cooperation collapses when elites weaponise nationalism to avoid accountability, as seen in the 1930s and 1990s, yet today’s 'reforms' repeat these mistakes by excluding Indigenous sovereignty, feminist economics, and ecological limits. Cross-cultural models—from Māori governance to *ubuntu*—offer viable alternatives, but they are sidelined by a power structure that frames cooperation as a technical problem rather than a political choice. The trickster reading exposes the absurdity: while leaders debate 'rules,' the same actors fund militaries, lobby to weaken climate treaties, and hoard vaccines. True cooperation requires dismantling these contradictions—by centring land rights, care economies, and algorithmic sovereignty in the hands of those currently excluded. The path forward is not 'fixing' the current system but designing new ones, where cooperation is not a concession to elites but a radical act of collective survival.