The World in 2012

Contrary to the belief of a small industry that has grown up around a supposed Mayan prophecy, the world won’t end in 2012. But at times it will feel as if it is about to. That is because the West’s economy will flirt with disaster, thanks to the indecisiveness of politicians on both sides of the Atlantic. The euro zone is heading back into recession because it dithered too long over the debt crisis in the single currency’s periphery. Meanwhile, America, its politics still gridlocked, will suffer self-induced stagnation and find itself outgrown by Japan, let alone China.

Quite how bad the economy gets may well decide whether Barack Obama wins a second term. The race for the White House will be the highest-profile (and most expensive) electoral contest of 2012, but America is not the only big country that could see change at the top: four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are picking leaders. Nicolas Sarkozy, having come to power in 2007 promising change, will try to persuade French voters that he rather than the Socialists’ François Hollande is now the man to provide stability. The switches of power in Russia and China are more predictable, but they will still make for a nervousness in Moscow and Beijing.

So the world’s leaders will be preoccupied at home. Don’t expect too much, then, of global gatherings such as the “Rio+20” conference on sustainable development. The places to watch will be the bits of the world where dramatic change could come: Venezuela, for example, where Hugo Chávez will battle for his political life as well as for his health; and sub-Saharan Africa, where the Arab spring could spread. Read more at The Economist