Presentation short abstract

This presentation analyses the recent evolution of the conditions that sustain core-periphery relations been evolving to interrogate under which conditions do they offer potential openings for a planetary post-growth transition.

Presentation long abstract

Degrowth is typically framed as a precondition of a fairer geopolitical order. Given the enormous quantity of resources and atmospheric space necessary to maintain perpetual economic growth and the 'imperial mode of living' in the core, abolishing these is necessary to allow countries in the Global South to fulfil their many unmet social needs without driving the planet irreversibly to ecological collapse. Much of the post-growth literature has worked with the implicit assumption, thus, that a more just world would be triggered by degrowth transitions in the rich economies. Nonetheless, given that capitalist growth has historically depended on a geopolitical structure polarised between core and periphery and structured around relations of unequal exchange, it can also be that the dismantling of this architecture in favour of a more egalitarian world order creates further openings for post-growth transitions. And we are indeed seeing significant changes that could point to a multipolar geopolitical order, especially the rise of China and industrialisation more broadly in the South. This essay thus addresses the question: how have the conditions that sustain core-periphery relations been evolving in the unfolding 2020s, and to what extent do these changes offer potential openings for a planetary post-growth transition? To do so, we analyse how this conjuncture differently affects the core, the semi-peripheries, and the periphery, and under which conditions could developments in each of these realms favour broader transitions towards post-growth.