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Facing the global failures of scholarship and theory

Published: 28 Nov. 2025, 00:01

Park Myung-lim

The author is a political professor at Yonsei University.

The world today is unsettled, but an even deeper crisis lies beneath the disorder. It is the failure of the very scholarship and theories that claim to explain global reality. Few failures have been as complete. Over one generation, as the post–Cold War age of globalization gave way to the current era of de-globalization, academic discourse offered little value. In many cases it played a negative role.

Laborers sit on a swing at a construction site on the Bund waterfront area as the city's high-rise buildings are seen in the background, in central Shanghai, China, Sept. 5, 2024. [EPA/YONHAP]

The small theories that once tried to frame the global landscape have already lost credibility. Theories such as the “end of history,” the “clash of civilizations,” the “sole superpower,” “global civil war,” the “Thucydides trap,” the “new Cold War,” the “neo-tianxia order,” “Confucian revival” and “Western decline” no longer explain much of anything. Their errors can be debated at length, but the evidence is plain in the world as it stands.

Yet the collapse of these small theories is overshadowed by a larger failure. Two grand theories that shaped modern thought have both lost their footing. Liberalism and modernization theory on one side, and radicalism and socialist doctrine on the other, have each been undermined by the realities unfolding in the very places where they once claimed authority. The contradiction is striking.

According to modernization theory, economic growth and rising affluence strengthen education, expand the middle class and reinforce the stability of liberal democracy. For decades this logic shaped mainstream thinking. Some scholars went as far as to argue that once a nation’s income passed a certain threshold, democratic backsliding or collapse would be nearly impossible.

But modernization theory cannot account for what is unfolding today. Democratic erosion is visible not only in developing countries that succeeded economically but also in the world’s most advanced democracies. In some cases, economic development appears linked to democratic regression. Illiberal governance has persisted or deepened even in societies with large and growing middle classes. Middle-class abundance has not produced democratic revolutions.

The failure of radical theory is no less stark. China today is not evidence of Marxist-Leninist success but of its inversion. Socialist doctrine holds that private property produces exploitation, inequality and class domination. A classless society requires the abolition of private property and, eventually, the dissolution of the state.

China has moved in the opposite direction. Private property has expanded dramatically. Marketization and privatization have advanced. Inequality has intensified. Yet the Chinese Communist Party has not weakened. It has grown.

The numbers reveal the paradox. At its founding in 1921 the Communist Party had 57 members. At the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 it had grown to 4.48 million, or 0.8 percent of the population. At the start of reform and opening in 1978 membership reached 37 million, or 3.8 percent. Market reforms accelerated after 1978. Private property expanded. But Party membership also surged. In the early 1990s it surpassed 50 million. Today it exceeds 100 million, roughly seven percent of the population. The Party’s reach has not faded. It has embedded itself even more deeply in the state and the economy.

Inequality tells a similar story. China’s post-reform Gini coefficient, measured after taxes and transfers, has worsened steadily. It now exceeds that of the United States, one of the most unequal advanced economies. On redistribution, a core promise of socialism, China performs worse than many capitalist countries. Wealth concentration among the top one percent and 10 percent has risen sharply, while the share held by the bottom 50 percent has declined. A handful of mega-corporations dominate national market capitalization. The number of billionaires is now larger than in the United States. These outcomes would be difficult to imagine in a country that claims to uphold communist principles.

An aerial drone photo taken on July 5, 2025 shows rescuers searching for survivors at a site of mudslide in Rongchag County, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The mudslide, combined with a mountain torrent, damaged houses, inundated farmland and cut telecommunications, power and access to certain roads. [XINHUA]

The parallel failures of liberal and radical grand theories raise fundamental questions. If both paths fail to explain the world or guide it, what comes next? Many scholars now acknowledge the exhaustion of the old frameworks. Several international academics whom I have met recently have proposed collaborative efforts to chart a new direction. They argue that scholarship must confront its shortcomings and rebuild a shared basis for understanding global change.

This may be the moment to recall the thinkers and activists who advanced universal ideals of freedom, equality, democracy and peace even in the darkest times. Their ideas and actions shaped humanity’s progress when existing paradigms had reached their limits. As the world searches for new foundations, Korea too must ask where it stands and what role it intends to play.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.