Political Oulcomes of the Global Financial crisis النتائج السياسية للأزمة المالية العالمية

Gauging future political outcomes as a result of the global financial crisis is more of an art than a science. The global financial crisis will certainly have direct political effects across the globe, and indeed, already has, for example the government changes over the last several years across the European Union. If economies stay depressed, especially in Greece, such widespread discontent may well be the proverbial ‘tip of the iceberg’. However, there were other global influences already at work before the financial collapse, which will have equally wide-ranging political effects.

Certainly global warming, as demonstrated by violent storms and melting ice caps, will play havoc on the international scene. A report issued in the last quarter of 2012 by the United States’ top scientific research group, the National Research Council, outlined the variety of different areas – water supply, food markets, energy supply chains and public health systems – that will be severely affected over the next decade by global warming. Population is another issue that could affect global political interests in unforeseen ways. In coming years, as the National Research Council’s report noted, the mixture of exploding Third-World populations and the negative impacts of global warming could be a volatile mixture. Yet in developed countries, ironically, it is population decline that could cause political instability.