Key messages
- This paper presents the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index. The first part analyses the main results for 2025, while the second part contrasts some of the most widespread ideas about globalisation as we know it (1990-2025).
- In 2025 the ranking continues to be led by the US, followed by China. Together with Russia, these are the countries that record the largest increases in global presence compared with the previous year.
- The world is not de-globalising. Although the pace of growth of globalisation is slower, the aggregate values of economic and soft presence are now far higher than those recorded in 1990. This is not the case for the military dimension, which declined during the early 21st century and has begun to grow again in recent years.
- From a geographical perspective, globalisation is highly concentrated in three major regions: Europe, North America and Asia. These regions have advanced processes of regional integration. By contrast, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East have recorded very low growth, calling into question both the automatic link between globalisation and development and the global spread of globalisation itself.
- The diagnosis differs depending on whether the data are examined in absolute values or as a share of the total. China and the US have gained the most presence, and China’s global share is now higher than that of the former Soviet Union. However, there has also been a redistribution among the middle positions of the ranking in two distinct phases: one up to 2010, reflecting the rise of Europe, and another since then, driven by Asian countries.
- Still, today’s world is less multipolar than often claimed. Groupings of rising powers such as BRICS or the Next-11 have barely increased their relative weight over these decades. Even the gap between the Global North and the Global South, excluding China and the US, would today stand at levels similar to those of the 1990s.
Analysis
Doubts are growing as to whether we currently witness the beginning of a new world order, not only because of the configuration of a new balance of power, but also because of the transformation of the basic parameters of the dominant paradigm. Since the 1990s, globalisation was understood by many as an inevitable and irreversible process within an optimistic narrative, centred on external openness and growing integration as a mechanism of stability and an opportunity for development. It was an apparently ideology-less process, in which geographical borders seemed blurred and gave way to a unified image of the world. Alongside greater economic interdependence, links of a different nature were also taking shape, including cultural, scientific and technological, and interpersonal ties, which seemed to outline a less militarised international order. It was a world in transition from the bipolar logic of the Cold War towards a more multipolar configuration, with a growing number of countries claiming a voice of their own within an increasingly dense network of multilateral institutions and organisations.
Today, however, just over three decades later, the narrative is different. Since the Great Recession, concepts such as de-globalisation, ‘slowbalisation’ and secular stagnation began to spread as ways of describing a scenario marked by the reduced dynamism of international trade and growing geopolitical rivalry. The pandemic, technological tensions between the US and China, and the war in Ukraine fed the idea that globalisation as it had been known until then was being transformed. Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency, and in particular the so called Liberation Day, in a sense represent the beginning of a new era of globalisation marked by growing uncertainty, geographical and geopolitical fragmentation, in which external interdependence may now constitute a strategic vulnerability.
Today’s world is substantially different from that of the 1990s. The narrative of multipolarity that had prevailed for decades, associated with the rise of emerging economies and a greater plurality of actors in multilateral organisations, has been replaced by geopolitical rivalry between the US and China and by a world divided into the categories of Global North and Global South. But have we moved from the bipolarity of the Cold War to a new bipolarity? Are we really de-globalising? Are we entering a new era of globalisation?
To address these questions, we use the Elcano Global Presence Index, an analytical international-relations tool that measures countries’ external projection based on a set of indicators grouped into three dimensions: economic, military and soft. The first part of this paper presents the 2025 results and compares them with the previous year, while the second part examines four widely held narratives about globalisation and its evolution since 1990.
1. Results of the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index
The results of the new edition of the Elcano Global Presence Index show a 2025 ranking led by the US and followed by China, Germany, the UK and Japan (Figure 1). In the top 20 positions there is a geographically heterogeneous group of countries: the two North American countries –the US and Canada–; five Asian countries; two Middle Eastern countries –the UAE and Saudi Arabia–; and 11 European countries, four of which are not EU members, namely the UK, Russia, Turkey and Switzerland.
Figure 1. Ranking of the Elcano Global Presence Index, 2025
Figure 2 shows the changes in absolute value compared with the previous year. The first point to note is that the increases are concentrated, in this order, in China, Russia and the US, while the remaining countries record significant losses or only very slight increases in their global presence. China and the US increase mainly as a result of greater economic presence and, to a lesser extent, also greater military presence. However, there is a notable divergence in the evolution of their soft presence: while China continues to increase its soft presence, the US reduces it. The domestic context in the US, changes in migration policies, in the attraction of international students and in development cooperation, among others, are diminishing US soft power. Russia, for its part, records an increase in its global presence explained almost exclusively by the expansion of its military projection, which grows by around 14% compared with the previous year, while its economic presence and soft projection decline.
Among the countries that lose presence in 2025, several European nations stand out, as do other powers from the so-called Global North, such as Japan and Australia. Spain remains in 13th position, between Italy and Australia, and is one of the few European countries whose global presence does not decline from 2024. Although its growth is very modest, just 0.5 points, Spain has been able to make up for losses in some indicators, such as Manufactures and Culture, with increases in Tourism, Sports and Information, among others. This performance contrasts with that of other EU partners, which show slight declines, such as France and Italy, or more pronounced ones, such as the Netherlands and Germany, mainly weighed down by the fall in their economic presence.
Figure 2. Change from 2024 to 2025 in the leading positions of the Global Presence ranking
2. Globalisation in historical perspective: contrasting narratives
In this section, we propose a historical view of the evolution of globalisation in terms of global presence. To this end, we identify four widely held narratives about globalisation since 1990 and contrast them with the results of the Elcano Global Presence Index.
2.1. Narrative 1: globalisation is decreasing worldwide
One of the most widespread ideas is that, after the globalising euphoria of recent decades, we are now in a period of de-globalisation. As noted in the introduction, there are certainly arguments for this view, and it is not a new diagnosis. However, it is necessary to distinguish changes in normative frameworks from the recorded data. Looking at the aggregate evolution of the Elcano Global Presence Index between 1990 and 2025 (Figure 3), there is no evidence of a process of de-globalisation understood as a sustained reduction in the aggregate world value of the different indicators considered. In fact, the level of global presence in 2025, although slightly below the peak reached in 2023, remains far above the levels recorded in 2010 and, even more so, those of 1990.
Figure 3. Aggregate evolution of the Elcano Global Presence Index, 1990-2025
A more erratic trend can be observed from the Great Recession onwards, as well as a 0.5% decline in the total aggregate in 2025 compared with the previous year. By dimensions, aggregate economic presence contracts by 1.2% and soft presence by 0.1%, while military presence grows by 1.5%, marked by the increase in the number of troops deployed abroad.
This uneven performance across dimensions suggests that, although there has been no substantive reduction in globalisation as a whole, a change in its nature may be underway. Looking at the variation across the different periods in the three dimensions, the shift in pattern becomes apparent.
Figure 4. Rate of change by dimension and period, 1990-2024
In a first stage, and due to the predominantly economic character of globalisation, it was this dimension that historically showed the greatest dynamism, though that was interrupted by the 2010 crisis. Since then, the soft dimension took over as the main driver of growth in global presence, a trend that was then abruptly halted by the pandemic. For its part, the military dimension, which had lost relative weight since the 1990s as a reflection of the demilitarisation of international relations after the Cold War, has regained dynamism in recent years, both because of the increase in deployed troops, largely as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and because of the rise in military equipment. In fact, the number of troops deployed in the world today stands at levels similar to those of the 1990s, but the same is not true of military equipment, despite growth in some regions, especially Asia.
2.2. Narrative 2: all regions of the world have increased their external projection
Another widespread idea is that globalisation has generated a generalised increase in the external projection of all regions of the world, implying geographical de-concentration compared with the world of the 1990s. To verify this, we organise the results by geographical regions and examine the aggregate evolution of each region’s global presence both in terms of absolute value and share, that is, the weight of its score within the world total.
Figure 5. Evolution of the value of global presence by region, 1990-2025
Figure 5 shows the evolution of the value of global presence by aggregating the countries that make up each region, which represents the geographical breakdown of Figure 3. The first piece of evidence is the high degree of concentration in Europe, Asia and North America. Not surprisingly, these regions not only concentrate the economies with the highest levels of development but have also been the setting for some of the most intense processes of regional integration, including the EU, USMCA and ASEAN, in which regional integration was largely conceived as an instrument of external competitiveness. Secondly, the evolution since 1990 has also been very uneven across regions. Since then, the increase in global presence in Asia-Pacific has approached 3,500 points, while Europe and North America would have increased by 2,079 and 1,385 points, respectively. By contrast, the increases are much more modest for the Middle East, Africa and Latin America.
Figure 6. Evolution of the share of global presence by region, 1990-2025
The uneven increase across regions necessarily entails a geographical reconfiguration of globalisation in terms of share of global presence. Asia practically doubles its share between 1990 and 2025, with a particularly intense acceleration from 2010 onwards. In fact, since then it has overtaken North America, which today records more than 6 percentage points less, whereas in 1990 the difference was more than 10 points in North America’s favour. However, North America’s decline occurred mainly before 2010, after which it remained at relatively stable levels and even recorded occasional increases. By contrast, Europe has experienced a sustained and intense decline precisely since then, although it remains the region with the highest aggregate global presence. The remaining regions remain at significantly lower levels. The Middle East records a slight increase associated mainly with its energy role, while Latin America and Africa reduce their relative weight.
An interpretation of the results in terms of shares leads to a reading in terms of a zero-sum game, while changes in absolute value offer a different interpretation. In any case, the evolution of the results is highly uneven across regions and shows a high concentration in three of them. This connects, on the one hand, with the thesis that the process of globalisation is to a large extent the aggregation of three processes of regionalisation and, on the other, with those perspectives that point to its negative impact, or at least its more limited benefits, in less developed regions.
2.3. Narrative 3: China gains global presence ahead of the US and Europe
Another widespread idea is that China has increased its external projection while the US and a large part of European countries have lost theirs. This perception has gained strength in Western political discourse, particularly among sectors linked to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement, to the point of considering that the current international economic order harms the US, reflecting a profound shift from the dominant globalising consensus of the 1990s.
Figure 7 shows the main increases and decreases in absolute value between 1990 and 2025. China would have been the country with the largest increase in global presence, but the US would be second. Some distance behind are other Asian economies, such as India, South Korea and Japan, reflecting that shift of the axis of the world economy towards Asia. Among European countries, Germany, the UK and the Netherlands would also have recorded increases, together with Ireland, Spain and Switzerland, although more moderate than those of the Asian countries. The United Arab Emirates also appears, standing out among the countries of its region, as does Canada within the process of regional integration in North America. Of the 150 countries for which we calculate the Index, only 13 would today have less global presence than in 1990. The most significant case is Russia, which today would not reach the values recorded by the former USSR.
Figure 7. Main increases and decreases in global presence, 1990 to 2025, absolute value
Most countries have increased their global presence, but in a highly uneven way, with the US and China, and to a lesser extent other Asian and European countries, recording the largest increases. This uneven evolution in absolute value obviously modifies the shares of global presence. The US went from 23.8% in 1990 to 19.5% in 2025, while China moved from 2.5% to 11.6% over the same period. European countries record a more moderate increase, but the EU also shows a sustained loss of presence in the rest of the world, that is, considering only its external projection once intra-EU links are excluded. Since 2005 the EU had maintained a level of global presence higher than that of the US. However, from 2020 onwards a significant fall can be observed, coinciding with the impact of Brexit and the pandemic. This does not mean that the loss of EU presence is due to the departure of the UK, which has even lost more presence since then, but rather to the lower dynamism of large economies such as Germany and France. As a result, in 2025 the US surpasses the value of the EU’s global presence for the first time in the series.
Figure 8. Evolution of the share of global presence of the US, China and the EU, 2005-25
2.4. Narrative 4: we have moved from the bipolarity of the Cold War, between the US and the USSR, to a multipolar world, now replaced by a new bipolarity between the US and China
To contrast this idea, we use, first, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for the 150 countries of the world, whose decline would indicate de-concentration towards a more multipolar world. Secondly, we aggregate the countries currently considered part of the Global North and the Global South, but excluding the US and China, with the aim of determining whether, beyond the dynamic of the two great powers, convergence is taking place between the rest of the countries. Finally, we revisit two categories widely used to refer to emerging countries: BRICS and the Next-11.
What can be observed is a general trend towards de-concentration of global presence in the world until the early 2010s, reflecting greater multipolarity, and a certain reversal of this trend since then, but not quite returning to the levels of the 1990s. At that time, six countries recorded a share of presence above 5%: the US, the USSR, Germany, the UK, France and Japan, whereas in 2025 only the US, China and Germany exceed that threshold. It is true that China’s share today exceeds that of the USSR in 1990, 11.6% and 8.2% respectively, but there has also been a redistribution across different segments of the ranking. In 1990 the top 20 countries accumulated more than 82% of the world aggregate of global presence, compared with 78% in 2025. The remaining 130 countries for which the Index is calculated would have gained only 4 percentage points of global share over 35 years.
Figure 9. Evolution of the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index by dimensions of global presence, 1990-2025
This dynamic of de-concentration has been particularly driven by the economic dimension, in line with a period of high productive transnationalisation and industrialisation of peripheral countries, with the consequent increase in productive and financial links in the world economy. By contrast, the military dimension shows higher levels of concentration, as it is dominated by a very small number of powers. Between the two lies the soft dimension, which shows a tendency towards some concentration since 2000. This would be compatible with a growing concentration of scientific and technological capacities in a few countries, while other indicators within this dimension, such as tourism and sports, may be becoming more dispersed. Taken together, the results suggest that globalisation has dispersed global presence above all in the economic sphere, but much less so in the military and soft dimensions, giving rise in any case to an asymmetric multipolarity.
From another perspective, the analysis of multipolarity requires important nuances. Figure 10 shows the aggregate evolution of the global presence of the Global North and the Global South, but without considering the US and China, with the aim of interpreting the evolution of the remaining countries without the distortion generated by the two great powers.
Figure 10. Aggregate evolution of the value of presence of the Global North and Global South, excluding the US and China, 1990-2025
The results show a widening of the gap between both groupings until 2010 and a notable reduction since then, although interrupted by the pandemic. But the difference between the Global North and the Global South, excluding China and the US, is today greater than it was in 1990. The explanation for this counterintuitive result lies precisely in the performance of European countries, with marked growth until the Great Recession, replaced since then by Asian countries, but not by other emerging regions. According to these results, the world of 2010 was less multipolar than the prevailing narrative suggested.
During that period, a series of labels became popular in the financial world to identify emerging countries, such as BRICS or Next-11, which would group Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Turkey and Vietnam. Looking at the evolution of the results for these groupings, a very timid growth in their share of global presence can be observed. The share of global presence of the BRICS, excluding China, increases from 2010 onwards, falls back in the following years and expands strongly again after the pandemic. Even so, since 1990 the accumulated increase barely reaches two percentage points, and one percentage point in the case of the Next-11.
Figure 11. Evolution of the share of global presence of the BRICS, excluding China, and the Next-11, 2000-24
Conclusions
Faced with the question of whether we are already in a new world order, the first answer is probably not yet, but the world is clearly moving towards something different from what we had known until now. Globalisation, as a historical process, is path-dependent and is also irreversible, but in the sense that the alteration of existing consensuses does not imply a return to the initial point before them but rather configures a new starting point. The historical cycle that began in the 1990s seems to have come to an end, undoubtedly changing the paradigm of globalisation.
In this respect, 2025 ended with a global presence ranking led by the US, with China still at a considerable distance, and with European countries still notably present in the top positions. Compared with the previous year, increases were concentrated, in this order, in China, Russia and the US, while the remaining countries recorded significant losses or only very slight increases. Spain remains in 13th position and, although with very modest growth, is one of the few European countries that does not see the value of its presence decline compared with the previous year.
But the world does not appear to be experiencing less globalisation in absolute terms, but rather a change both in the intensity and in the nature of the process and in its geographical configuration. The data therefore point not to de facto deglobalisation, compatible with growing institutional and normative fragmentation, but to a transformation that has already been perceptible since the crisis of 2010. This is a globalisation with lower economic dynamism, increasingly driven first by the soft dimension and, more recently, by the military dimension.
From a geographical point of view, not all regions have experienced the same trend over the past decades. While Asian countries have notably increased their external projection, this has slowed down for traditional Western powers, particularly European countries since the Great Recession. But it remains a process highly concentrated in three large regions: Europe, North America and Asia, precisely the spaces that have developed the most advanced processes of regional integration. The remaining regions, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, have instead recorded very low growth in their global presence, calling into question the dynamic between globalisation and development as well as the very spread of globalisation. In a sense, part of what has been called globalisation should be called regionalisation, as the aggregation of articulations within large blocs.
The greater dynamism of Asia, and particularly of China, has implied a profound reconfiguration of the geographical distribution of global presence, altering the relative balances that had existed since the end of the Cold War. However, in absolute value, the US is, after China, the country that has most increased its presence since the 1990s, which has enabled it to sustain a high share that has also grown in recent years. These results point to a certain inconsistency in the Trumpist MAGA discourse, since rather than a loss of relevance of the US, we have witnessed the consolidation of China, a country of 1.5 billion inhabitants –more than 17% of the world total–, which has experienced remarkable development during the period. Therefore, this geographical reconfiguration should not be interpreted in terms of a zero-sum game, but rather as the result of the incorporation of new large powers into the world economy.
The decline is clearer in the European case, both in the external projection of the EU and in that of its member states. The growth of its global presence was interrupted in 2010 and has fallen steadily, coinciding with the departure of the UK. In fact, in 2025 the US surpassed the value of the EU’s global presence for the first time in the series.
In light of the global presence data, the world is less multipolar than is often claimed. Groupings such as BRICS or Next-11 have barely increased their relative weight over these decades, and even the Global North and Global South gap would today stand at levels similar to those of the 1990s. There is indeed a transition from the bipolarity of the 1990s towards a more geographically deconcentrated world, driven by the rise of the EU until 2010 and, subsequently, by the strong growth of China. But there is also no clear trend towards a new bipolarity because, alongside China’s rise and the existence of the EU, there has also been a redistribution across the middle positions of the ranking in two distinct phases, one up to 2010 reflecting the European rise, and another since then driven by Asian countries. In a sense, over these decades multipolarity would have been more represented in the normative sphere than supported by tangible results.
But beyond the results, what has already changed is the narrative about globalisation. The Western vision now coexists with other perspectives that question the consensus of recent decades and suggest that, rather than witnessing the end of globalisation, we are witnessing the exhaustion of a particular way of understanding the world. No one knows with certainty whether we have already entered a new order or whether we remain in that chiaroscuro where monsters emerge. What does seem clear is that the disappearance of a consensus opens a period of uncertainty in which the rules, the protagonists and, ultimately, the future course of globalisation will be redefined.
