Third World Quarterly

Technological Dependency and Non-Alignment in a Multipolar World

Control over and access to strategic technologies such as semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, and critical communications have always been politically contested. But a decade of increasingly stringent US policies rejecting Chinese digital technologies and hampering China's technological development has confronted emerging powers with a choice between aligning with a Western- or China-centric digital ecosystem. At the same time, the global system is not rigidly bipolar, but rather characterised by increasing multipolarity. This evolving configuration does not eliminate technological asymmetries, but reconfigures them, creating differentiated forms of dependency and shaping the strategic options available to states. For instance, the EU, India, Russia, and South Africa aspire to become pivotal powers, and some Latin American countries want to constitute a separate geopolitical bloc through regional integration. In these circumstances, many rising powers opt for strategies aimed at avoiding exclusive alignment, balancing between different blocs, and maintaining room for manoeuvre through diverse forms of hedging.  These strategies are often framed as varieties of non- or multi-alignment, understood as modes of political positioning vis-à-vis competing technological powers. Here, India, Indonesia, or Latin American countries draw on historical and contemporary repertoires of non-alignment. However, similar patterns of selective alignment and autonomy-seeking can also be observed in other actors, including the EU, as it cannot afford to stop trade and cooperation with China on all levels.      

While emerging powers necessarily refer back to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), digital and technological policy and the emergence of the so-called Second Cold War are new phenomena affecting the practice of non- or multi-alignment. Contemporary forms of non-alignment differ from their Cold War predecessor in that they are less about strict neutrality between ideological blocs and more about flexible, issue-specific positioning across interdependent technological and economic networks. Rather than abstaining from alignment altogether, “contemporary” non-alignment often entails selective engagement with multiple partners to maximise strategic autonomy under conditions of deep structural interdependence. Our special issue explores those novel features.

The special issue addresses the following questions by bringing multipolarity, technological dependency, and non-alignment into a common analytical framework:

• How does the transformation of the world order towards increased multipolarity affect emerging powers’ technological dependency and their digital policies?
• In a context of deepening and reconfiguring technological dependencies, how do states navigate structural constraints while pursuing autonomy in the digital domain?
• How far can emerging powers pursue digital sovereignty and strategic autonomy when they remain structurally dependent on foreign hardware, software, and cloud infrastructures?
• To what extent do strategies of political positioning, including non-alignment, enable rising powers to navigate technological dependency?
• What role does digital industrial policy play for these responses?

The special issue invites theoretical and empirical contributions that address these questions. We particularly welcome contributions dealing with the Global South countries.

References:

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Jiang, M., & Belli, L. (Eds.). (2025). Digital sovereignty in the BRICS countries: How the Global South and emerging power alliances are reshaping digital governance. Cambridge University Press.

Magunna, Aaron (2025), Beyond hedging: understanding India’s polyalignment in the Second Cold War. Third World Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2025.2511859.

Schindler, S. et al. (2024), The Second Cold War: US-China Competition for Centrality in Infrastructure, Digital, Production, and Finance Networks. Geopolitics, 19 (4), 1083-1120. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2024.2434306