Editorial
Dear progressives,
As the Munich Security Conference convenes this week, one reality hangs over the gathering: the old order is gone. Not fading, not pausing – gone.
At the previous global leaders’ summit in Davos, the Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it bluntly: “We know the old order is not coming back.” His words were more than a diagnosis – they were an unmistakable reference to the rupture accelerated by the current U.S. administration. What was once discussed in analytical circles has now become a geopolitical fact.
Mark Carney’s diagnosis in Davos has sent shockwaves far beyond the Alpine conference halls and newspaper editorials. Especially in traditionally Atlanticist Germany, this has sparked an intense political debate. Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil are articulating remarkably similar conclusions: Germany and Europe must think more geopolitically, act more strategically – and move more decisively.
In just a few years, Germany has reached another historic turning point – a moment described with a word that has entered the international vocabulary: Zeitenwende. What we are experiencing today feels like Zeitenwende 2.0: the first sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the second by the United States’ growing retreat from its role as a reliable ally and its increasingly confrontational stance toward liberal democratic norms – visible in Munich, in Davos, and beyond.
Change itself is not the core problem. Uncertainty is. In one of our recent papers, we argued that policy uncertainty – not transformation per se – is the main barrier to renewal in industrial heartlands. The same holds true for global affairs today. The key question is no longer whether the world is changing, but how progressives will shape it – and whether they will do so with clarity and confidence.
In light of authoritarian state capitalism in China and an increasingly authoritarian tech-capitalism in the United States, Germany and Europe must rapidly rethink their role and responsibility. This debate is often framed domestically as one about competitiveness and sovereignty. But for progressives, the answer must go further.
One promising concept is what we like to call “system competitiveness” – or, in proper German word-smith fashion, Systemwettbewerbsfähigkeit. Yes, it is a word monster. But it captures something that is a necessary condition for a Carney-like reshaping of the international order: it is not just economic performance that ultimately matters, but a democracy’s capacity to deliver security, industrial strength and innovation, social cohesion, and climate leadership at the same time. This is where system competitiveness meets what we would call the politics of collectivism: the democratic ability to mobilise collective resources, coordinate public and private actors, and prioritise community, group and state over the individual..
This is the mountain we must climb – and it is precisely where Das Progressive Zentrum positions its work. We strengthen transatlantic and international partnerships, draw policy lessons from long-term projects such as our Industrial Heartlands initiative, and create spaces for progressive exchange – from Berlin to London to Barcelona, and soon beyond. Most importantly, we share these insights to help progressives navigate this new era together.
The old order is gone. What comes next is ours to shape.
With best regards,
Dominic Schwickert
Executive Director, Das Progressive Zentrum
Florian Ranft
Member of the Management Board, Head of Green New Deal & Progressive Governance, Das Progressive Zentrum
Fotos: MSC/Kuhlmann; Copyright: World Economic Forum/Valeriano di Domenico
