Blog Assignment 1
How the Putin Shock Might Affect the World Economy
When it comes to political geography, specifically the world economy, there are three types of scale; local, national and global. Within these, local is the scale of experience, national is the scale of ideology, and global is the scale of reality. Put simply, reality is filtered through nation-centered ideology, affecting people's daily experiences. But, allow me to explain, and it is easiest to do so if we go from the top down; starting with global. Global is the scale of reality, meaning the holistic, concert reality that is the world economy. National is the scale of ideology, which is a partial and incomplete view of that world system. This distorts reality into the false and limited picture that is nation-centered thinking. Local, the scale of experience, is our daily lives, which encompasses our daily needs. Pulling everything back together, the crucial events that structure our daily activities occur at the global scale.
The article I chose today is from the NY Times, titled, How the Putin Shock Might Affect the World Economy. In this case, it discusses how Putin's decision to invade Ukraine has caused other countries to instill sanctions, which is affecting food and energy everywhere. As the article puts it, "standing up to aggression doesn't come free (Krugman, 2022)." Russia and Ukraine's seemingly national crises have now had an affect on the global economy. With sanctions being applied by Europe and the West against Russia, markets are "acting as if" they have been disrupted, and we have seen the price of oil shoot up. The only other time oil has shot up this high, reportedly, was during the Iranian revolution in 1979 (Krugman, 2022). So, as we can see, a national issue then became a global issue, which has now become an issue in our individual experiences. I, personally, drive a Honda Civic, which makes pretty good gas mileage, and even I am at over $40 a tank. This article does a great job explaining how this situation has spread across all geographical scales.
References:
Flint, C., & Taylor, P. J. (2018). Political Geography: World-Economy, Nation-State and Locality. Routledge.
Krugman, P. (2022, March 8). How the Putin Shock Might Affect the World Economy. The New York Times. Retrieved March 27, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/opinion/putin-russia-ukraine-economy-sanctions.html?searchResultPosition=1
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