Personal Leadership influence in International Order
On a seminar about “Personal Leadership influence in International Order” held on 9th November 2017 in Barcelona at CEI (Centre of International Studies) and conducted by the Ambassador Fernando Perpiñá-Robert, there was a discussion between speakers about the appearance of new balances between states, and its influence in a globalised environment.
Firstly, the world is beginning to share power with new leadership styles that are becoming more personal, trying to identify with rulers’ opinions (i.e. Donald Trump in the USA, Vladimir Putin in Russia or Xi Jinping in China) with states self-interest. This leads to consider for politicians their opinions and actions as beneficial for the states they govern as “there is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction” (Winston Churchill). Thus, there are events happening worldwide moving much faster than before, which does not allow to see clearly what happens in the world. Therefore, it becomes important to define as the Ambassador Jorge Dezcallar presented in the seminar and that I describe briefly below, “the Key aspects that define new leadership or global changes”.
1. American politics introspection. American withdrawal that begun with President Barack Obama tired to intervene into world conflicts (i.e Afghanistan, Iraq) without a burden sharing from the personal and economical costs by its allies
2. European (economic) crisis in 2008. With the beginning of the economic crisis, it becomes crucial to understand that social conflicts end up with political interference. Some of those examples such as the Brexit and populist political movements relevance, highlights the presence of discrepancies about a European conception. Therefore, it becomes necessary to consider Europe as a unit in the future to confront global challenges, which may end up in the need for a more inclusive European defensive strategy to confront for instance global terrorism and energy union policies to reduce the dependency from Russian energy supplies especially to Eastern Europe.
3. Appearance of new global actors that look for a protagonist ambition. There are new countries as China that are challenging a Western-side perception of the structure of global politics and economics that needs to be addressed by the Western countries.
To close, it seems that the world is moving towards a multipolar world with a focus on protectionism and less importance for a collective security, but rather focus on a rising importance of personal leadership when governing a state. Those changes creates a puzzling and unpredictable policy to cope united different countries with global challenges appearing in the world such as global terrorism or cyberattacks.
Daniel Hernández Iniesta. daniel.hndez@gmail.com
