The US will hold congressional as well as presidential elections in 2020, with major implications for the business regulatory agenda domestically and for global companies with markets and supply chains linked to the US. China will meanwhile finalise its fourteenth five-year plan, covering the period 2021-25, against a backdrop of slowing growth rates and deepening trade competition with the US.
In Germany, splits within the ruling coalition and gains for right-wing populists in local elections during 2019 are fuelling speculation of an early election being triggered in the coming year. An early election in the UK in December 2019 could produce another unstable government riven by divisions over Brexit, while Italy will enter 2020 with a fragile coalition and sustained demands for early elections from the populist right. The result of elections in Canada in October means that Prime Minister Trudeau will have to govern without a parliamentary majority and amidst mounting tensions between the federal government and Conservative-dominated provincial administrations.
Jair Bolsonaro’s administration in Brazil secured congressional support for a key pension reform bill in 2019 but must steer the rest of its legislative agenda through a deeply divided congress. A new Peronist government in Argentina will have to balance the competing pressures of hyperinflation, unsustainable foreign debt and public demands for a relaxation of austerity policies.
2019 saw some notable areas of political continuity within the G20, with elections returning incumbent governments in India, Indonesia and South Africa and an upper house election in Japan comfortably restoring the ruling party’s majority. However, the election in Indonesia was followed by a wave of populist social policies triggering violent anti-government unrest. Factionalism and a politically weakened president are limiting the scope of reform and sustaining policy risks in South Africa.
The reform agenda of the Saudi Crown Prince continues to strain relations within the royal family, reflected in further flux in senior ministerial positions during 2019. In Turkey, electoral setbacks for the ruling AKP have compounded President Erdogan’s authoritarian and interventionist tendencies, including on monetary policy. Policy trends in Russia are also broadly negative from the perspective of foreign businesses, reflected in the recent introduction of regulations restricting levels of foreign ownership in the tech sector.
France has been one of the more stable policy environments within the G20 in 2019. However, the next stage of President Macron’s reform agenda coupled with reduced growth could feed a public backlash and further increase in support for right-wing populists in 2020.
Sibylline Annual Forecast 2020: Global Themes
Global Risk Themes 2020, #7: Terrorism and militancy
Right-wing terrorism on the rise but Islamist militancy still presents the greatest threat globally In contrast to some other non-state threats the recent trend among
Global Risk Themes 2020, #6: Privately operated assets as proxy targets
Businesses in energy and critical national infrastructure face an increasing threat of being implicated in inter-state rivalries The world’s major geopolitical rivalries are all being
Global Risk Themes 2020, #5: Rising authoritarianism and strained democratic norms
There is a strong correlation between increasing authoritarianism and weakening standards of governance and transparency 2019 was another year of friction between authoritarianism and democratic
UNREST SETS THE STAGE FOR ANOTHER CHALLENGING YEAR FOR MIDDLE EAST ENERGY
This year’s wave of protests in Algeria, Iraq and Lebanon has inevitably triggered comparisons with the Arab Spring of 2011. The parallels have been evident
Global Risk Themes 2020, #4: Destabilising civil unrest
Egypt, Nigeria, Iran and Pakistan are among the large countries facing rising domestic unrest risks heading into 2020 Mass protests triggered the fall of long-standing,
Global Risk Themes 2020, #3: Policy flux and polarisation in the G20
Policy risks are on an increasing trajectory in well over half of the G20 and seven of the world’s ten largest economies. The US will
