41Received 22.09.2025. Revised 25.02.2026. Accepted 29.04.2026.
Abstract. The crisis of the unipolar model, driven by its inherent dysfunctions (rule asymmetry, securitization of financial infrastructure, social costs of neoliberal policies), has triggered the fragmentation of global economic relations. Through critical and institutional analysis, this article argues that the rise of new power centers and the global energy transition act not merely as catalysts for change but as sources of fundamentally new – horizontal – dilemmas: institutional (pluralism vs. bloc fragmentation), regulatory (climate cooperation vs. green protectionism), temporal (short-term political cycles vs. long-term strategic resilience), and legitimation (internal contradictions of the energy transition, including social resistance and technological externalities). The study demonstrates that the emerging contours of a hypothesized “Globalization 2.0” are shaped not by declaratory principles (such as managed interdependence or climate mainstreaming), but by the capacity of key actors – states, corporations, and institutions – to ensure the interoperability of competing technical, regulatory, and financial standards. Drawing on empirical data on tariff asymmetries, supply chain vulnerabilities, and the uneven impact of carbon border mechanisms, the article reveals a self-reinforcing cycle of fragmentation. It concludes that failure to resolve the identified horizontal dilemmas through hybrid strategies and interoperable platforms will lead not to a stable polycentric order, but to the reproduction of unipolar dysfunctions in a more acute and conflict-ridden form of bloc-based fragmentation.
Keywords: Globalization 2.0, fragmentation, polycentrism, horizontal dilemmas, managed interdependence, interoperability, energy transfer, climate protectionism
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