2024.

Written by: Ivana Dragićević

Political scientist Petar Popović recently used a nice phrase about the times we live in on a panel. Since 2008, claims Popović, the agony of order has been going on in the world, and in 2024 we are waiting for uniformity.

The year of equalization is the year in which the most elections in world history will be held. Although elections are being held in more than seventy countries where half of the global population lives, in the agony of order or the time between times, as some other analysts call it, this in itself does not mean that democracy is at the peak of its strength and power. The tendencies we see in the world's largest democracy, India, which will vote in 2024, show that the democratic procedure can very easily pave the way for autocracy, discrediting political opponents, nationalism, stifling rights and freedoms... The question of the value of democracy, which is not a given, but one for which always struggles, will be one of the key topics in the year ahead. In such times, we as citizens must be able to find our way between the daily firefighting measures we live in our local communities and nationally and globally, and medium-term expectations and plans and long-term processes.

With the war in Ukraine and the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, Europe will go to the polls in June for the first time since the pandemic. It is difficult to assess whether the state of crisis, rising prices, energy crisis and inflation is a package that will motivate European citizens to go to the polls or not, but the European elections will certainly be marked this time by the hijacking of European themes in the campaigns. Can citizens be smarter and more aware than the authorities and the representatives they send to the European Parliament, or will the pen at the polling station react impulsively, play it supposedly safe, or will the situation favor abstinence, is an open question. Europe is getting older, it has to make key strategic decisions about its future, while the migration process related to crises and climate change does not stop.

Will the Europeans, to whom the legislation related to big-tech companies will work in 2024, be aware and conscientious about their future?

Although Asia will be the continent where the largest number of people will vote, as there are Indonesia and Bangladesh along with India, the largest number of elections will be held in Africa, a young and propulsive continent with great differences. Whether the trend of military coups that we have seen in the Sahel in 2023 will spread or remain limited to the belt around the Sahara is something that needs attention, as well as the further influence of Russia and China on the southern European neighborhood, full of crucial raw materials for green technology. The geostrategic struggle for resources crucial to the fight against climate change and ecological transition will be an important field in the period of equalization ahead.

The multipolar world of realignment does not give much hope for optimism, because, as we have seen in the past few years, the weather is increasingly uncertain and unpredictable. Populism, and as The Economist calls it, the age of transactional globalization, offer no hope. In that cauldron there were also local conflicts in which the outlines of this new multipolarity measure the impossibility of punishment or the rule of law in conflict zones. From Israel and Gaza, to Ukraine, through Nagorno-Karabakh and the Sahel, it's as if words and concepts such as negotiations, peace, and international law are no longer in play.

The key elections for the resolution of many global crises that we have seen in the year behind us will be the American ones in November. Although it is not yet known whether Donald Trump will ultimately be the Republican presidential candidate or not, his high popularity on the one hand and polarizing effect on the other, do not make any scenario in the US pleasant or encouraging. The trial for election fraud should begin the day before the so-called Super Tuesday. If we remember how Trump reacted to losing the 2020 election, and the never-before-seen images of his supporters storming the Congress building, and everything that followed in the past four years in American and global politics, even Trump's failure to win the Republican nomination could be a possible trigger for instability. Considering the campaign that he is aggressively conducting online, Trump does not intend to give up or stop. What is interesting is how Europe behaves as if the Trump scenario is something it is seeing for the first time. Meanwhile, the disciples of his ideologue Steve Bannon, from Orban to Meloni, are coming to power in Europe or consolidating it.

The future of the global economy, which will be affected by artificial intelligence through a change in concept, will be a topic that will continue in 2024. Apart from Europe, which has harmonized legislation around AI, the key actors in the reconceptualization of the world are still the two strongest global economies exercising their muscles. The ground is still shaking in the Pacific, the first elections in the new year are those in Taiwan in January. Constantly maintaining tension and inciting conflict between China and the US does not contribute to the stabilization of global conditions.

As someone recently wrote, Europe is trapped in the mud of Donbass. The short-sightedness of the Union, which after the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of parts of the eastern Ukrainian regions in 2014, allowed Putin to do whatever he wanted, and was a guest at the Olympic Games and the World Cup in Russia, shows that the battle for Ukraine is really a battle for the values ​​we knew and we know. "Fatigue" or "satiation" with Ukraine are such heinous terms that are used lightly in media articles and casual comments on social networks, which show that misunderstanding of the state of affairs and possible outcomes is something for which all of us, as European taxpayers, pay too dearly and to such and such politicians and such and such bureaucrats who manage the process in the European service for foreign affairs. Europe is not a military power. We will see if it will be possible, if anything, after the formation of the new European Commission in the fall of 2024.

Our immediate neighborhood, from Israel, Gaza, Syria, Iran, all the way to Afghanistan, will have to be in our focus more and more deeply. Europe must change in the new time, the time of equalization or adjustment.

The year of equalization will have to become the beginning of the search for new ideas that will defy and be the answer to the principle of force and fear, whether he is openly autocratic like Putin, whose end is not in sight in 2024, whether he is hidden in the democratic cloak of those who eventually capture the state .

There is no false optimism in times of war, poverty, inequality, and insecurity.

In the photo that illustrates today's column, there are photos of five men (illustration with text on the N1 website - Biden, Xi, Putin, Netanyahu and Zelensky - editor's note). Key to decisions about today's fate of the world. There could have been more. Maybe that can also be one of our thoughts for the new year. What kind of world do we have when it is led, mostly, by old men, and what would it be like if the concepts and concentration of power were to change. Happy new year of equalization, in an order that is changing and we don't know how it will end - take care of your health and each other.

(N1/HR)