As I mentioned before, politics are uncertain, and
during the last period of globalization, they have become even more uncertain.
There are things like electoral surprises, in which countries like the United States,
the United Kingdom, or certain places in Europe,
in which political parties that are out of the mainstream, or
candidates that are out of the mainstream, are winning in these elections.
There's also some unintended consequences of globalization.
For instance, we were to believe that the integration of cultures,
closer contact between cultures, was going to create a more tolerant world.
Now as we know, we've seen in the last decade and a half things like European
born jihadists joining wars in the Middle East, that were recruited using
these great technologies that were invented in these last couple of decades,
that have been responsible for integrating the world economy, such as the Internet.
So the development of the Internet actually has created channels for
those who oppose globalization to get more strength.
So there are unintended consequences of globalization, and the rise of
movements that are not happy with the way the world has become more global.
And there is another element, how we understand globalization.
There are different interpretations of how we can become more global.
Let's go back to the jihadists in several places of the world.
They want to integrate countries, and they're a caliphate.
So they want to actually destroy borders in between countries and
integrate many countries.
But this is not a way those
proposing globalization in the 1990s were thinking about.
So this is something that we also find in left wing
movements in other parts of the world.
The late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez,
was proposing an integration of the southern economies to counterweigh
the power of countries like the United States or the European Union.
So, we find many new interpretations of globalization,
and again, unintended consequences.
So these are generating uncertainties that firms need to take into account.