Polycrisis vs. Polytunity: Global Echoes

WHAT WOULD A TRULY GLOBAL RESPONSE TO GLOBAL CHALLENGES LOOK LIKE? ECHOES FROM ASIA, LATIN AMERICA, AND EUROPE.

In recent years, polycrisis has become the dominant lens for interpreting global challenges, populating elite summits, academic conferences, policy reports, and news headlines.  

Yet in practice, polycrisis is a Western-centric narrative masquerading as global. It centers the anxiety of Western decline while failing to amplify the possibilities of a multipolar world.  

Polytunity reframes this moment globally. It insists that strengthening global democracy requires more than reforming domestic politics. It also requires meaningful pluralism in global thought and institutions—recognizing that solutions and innovation will increasingly emerge from the margins of the establishment. 

Polytunity is not naïve optimism in the face of existential threats, but a call for agency and systemic change. As Ang writes in Project Syndicate (2025): 

Disruption has often paved the way for renewal—but only for those willing to let go of the old order. When everything seems to break down at once, we are forced to go beyond patchwork solutions and redesign systems from the ground up. 

Since its introduction in 2024 at the UNDP Global Leadership Retreat, polytunity has resonated across regions—from Asia and Latin America to Europe. 

  • Dominican Republic: Former Vice President Margarita Cedeño dedicated an entire op-ed in Listín Diario (2024) in response to polytunity and AIM. She introduced Ang’s paradigm to Latin American readers through the Spanish title “poliunidad.”
  • India: Rajesh Kasturirangan connected Ang’s thinking to the unorthodox economist Albert Hirschman, especially the maxim of “using what you have.”
  • Hong Kong: In a feature interview, the South China Morning Post linked polytunity to Ang’s earlier work on China’s directed improvisation.
  • Canada: The futures-thinking newsletter Sentiers drew parallels between polytunity and “jugaad innovation,” a practice of frugal innovation emerging from India.
  • United Kingdom: Responding to Ang’s 2025 keynote at the Development Studies Association, Professor Aurélie Charles remarked: “Inspiring and profound keynote on the need to move from a Eurocentric view of polycrisis to a unified global view of polytunity.” 

 The term “polytunity” has already been translated by media into multiple languages, including: 

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