This interview is one of a series, produced as part of the Future of Peace program, that explores how thinkers and practitioners are making sense of a changing world and what that means for the future of peace. The series aims to surface different ways of thinking about the challenges, tensions, possibilities, and uncertainties that lie ahead.
The below is an edited transcript of a conversation that I had with Yuen Yuen Ang on July 20, 2026.
Yuen Yuen Ang is the Alfred Chandler Chair Professor of Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University. She defines today’s disruptions not just as a paralyzing “polycrisis,” but as a “polytunity”–a generational opening for deep transformation of global ideas and inclusion of new voices in a multipolar world. Ang was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow for “high caliber scholarship on the most pressing issues of our times” and among the “100 Most Influential Academics in Government” by Apolitical. Her award-winning book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap, which marks its 10th anniversary this year, is now available open access.
The transcript was originally generated using Zoom transcription software and has been edited for accuracy and readability. I have added hyperlinks.
Michelle Anderson: Yuen, thank you for taking the time to speak with me. Just to share a bit of context to ground the conversation: I was first introduced to your work at a Carnegie Endowment conference on opportunities in the global disorder. I was struck by your framing of this period not as a polycrisis, but rather a polytunity. I like how forward looking that framing is, particularly in a moment when I think discussions often get stuck on the disorder, with less attention to finding the opportunity. That prompted me to spend time engaging with your work, which I look forward to discussing today. We were also lucky enough to share your essay, “The Global Polytunity”, on our blog.
Perhaps to begin, could you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to the questions that you’re working on today? Maybe as an introduction to some of those ideas, you could also explain what you mean by polytunity, and why you think that framing matters.
Yuen Yuen Ang: First of all, thank you so much, Michelle. You’ve been so kind and generous to share my article and have me on this program. By way of introduction, I am a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University, and the question that has always fascinated me is how societies adapt to disruption– or why they fail to adapt.
Earlier in my work, I studied that question primarily through China’s structural transformation–in my book, How China Escaped the Poverty Trap–because it was a profoundly disruptive process. It generated the largest poverty reduction in modern history, but the experience was highly disorienting for millions of Chinese people that is hard to capture in a few sentences. Imagine living through hunger during the Great Leap Forward, mass violence during the Cultural Revolution, and then all of a sudden, capitalism. I studied how China adapted to this disruption and the experience of profound social changes. It was a particularly instructive case of adaptive governance under an authoritarian regime, which I know sounds paradoxical. We tend to think the China story is simply one about top-down control and strong governments, but if the answer were so simple, China would have prospered under Mao. When Deng Xiaoping opened markets in the 1980s, he launched a quiet political revolution, creating what I call an “autocracy with democratic characteristics,” introducing competition, accountability, partial limits on power, along with other adaptive mechanisms like deliberately ambiguous directives and policy experiments.
In 2023, I moved to Johns Hopkins, which was an exciting fresh start. I was appointed at two institutes that were created in light of disruptions: the Agora Institute is established to counter democratic erosion, and the Center for Economy and Society’s mandate is to find alternatives to neoliberalism, without specifying what they were. I had this incredible opportunity of having two blank canvases in front of me. Drawing on but going beyond my China work, I asked myself: What defines the times that we are living in? The elite establishment says: “polycrisis.”
But the hype over “polycrisis” reminds me of The Emperor’s New Clothes. The term describes the entanglement of global threats. But as a narrative, it is a fear-naming exercise— mourning about problems, and obsessed with “risk control,” a hangover from the 20th-century mindset. It is also a Eurocentric narrative, featuring Western voices on Western platforms, motivated by Western problems. When other regions faced crises, they were never called global. And if this is a polycrisis, shouldn’t we be hearing new voices and new thinking? Instead, who is platformed?
I see the polycrisis differently as polytunity, which means this is a generational opening for deep transformation. I’m not naive or optimistic. I’m fully aware of the severity of the challenges that we face. I’m saying it’s a polytunity because real change only comes about when the old order breaks down. Normally, we have no reason or incentive to rebuild from the ground up. A good example is foreign aid. Practitioners have criticized the aid industry for decades, but no real change happened. It was only after the closure of USAID, even though there was short-term pain, that we saw an explosion of attention on what really matters in development.
Our position shapes what we see and don’t see. I describe myself as someone on the margins of the establishment. I recognize my privileges as a tenured professor at a U.S. university, and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities I have. But I also understand marginalization in many ways. Holding both of those perspectives helps me see why those at the center of existing institutions are often preoccupied with preserving or mourning the old order. At the same time, I ask, why don’t you give the previously marginalized a chance to speak? If this is not the moment, then when is? We should be hearing more from the global majority, and also from grassroots, non-elite groups within the United States. From the ecological perspective, there’s a lot of wisdom we can learn from indigenous communities who have always been protecting the environment. If now is not the polytunity to include them, when will we ever include them?
MA: I like your phrasing, “generational opening for deep transformation.” What do you think that looks like, and how should we be approaching periods of disruption differently? I also want to pull in the concept of agency, which appears in some of your writing; how does that come into this?
YYA: We should be having conversations about change in every domain and field because the disruptions are sweeping everyone. In one of my essays, “Polytunity: The Future of Development”, I argue that we cannot shape the future of development unless we confront the past. The origins of development were structurally unequal, which has translated into distorted outcomes. There are many truly altruistic people who want to make a positive difference, yet we often hear of development projects that leave local communities disenfranchised. That’s because these projects, by design, serve donor interests first. Facing a massive disruption to the profession, it’s a good time to sit down, confront the past, and ask: what would serious inclusion look like? I can imagine that conversation happening in many domains.
Another domain that is deeply affecting me is higher education and AI. Universities are shaken by AI. This enriches my research agenda because I study how people react to disruptions! Some believe we must adapt to AI because the technology is here to stay, but other institutions conclude: let’s ban AI, bring back blue books, take pride in going back to the medieval ages.
When an earthquake happens, you see a divergence of how individuals and societies respond. When a dominant narrative like polycrisis takes this moment and freezes us in fear and paralysis, politically, what is that doing? Politically, that is trying to suppress agency, to keep you in fear so that you don’t realize what you can do with this moment. If you are still placing your bets on the old order simply because it is familiar, or because you’ve been programmed to look up to authority and believe what they say, then you’re missing out on a lot. The way I see it is, if the order is crumbling, then the future can be shaped, why don’t you do something about it?
That’s what I see as agency. There is unprecedented room for agency when there are disruptions. This was clear in the Chinese experience; if you look at how the most successful entrepreneurs were made, they were always made in moments of disruption. When a few individuals saw opportunity in ruptures and jumped in, they became masters of the future.
MA: Can you say more about your point on building coalitions for change? Looking ahead, what kinds of institutions, relationships, or forms of cooperation do you think will– or should– become more important in the future, particularly in this moment characterized by shifting power and increasing multipolarity?
YYA: Coalitions can happen on many levels: macro, medium, or in small circles around us. In my own small circle, I am especially interested in multipolarity. Geopolitical conversations tend to be dominated by the two great powers– the U.S. and China– while the rest are in the background, maybe with the EU having a bigger voice. To me, this is a great time to ask, what agency does the rest of the world want to exercise in shaping a multipolar order?
For that reason, one of the programs that I direct at Johns Hopkins is called the Multipolar World and U.S. China Forum. I deliberately put the Multipolar World in front. To me, this moment is a polytunity because if I tried to do the same thing 10 years ago, it would have seemed like wishful thinking. Now there’s a real sense that we are moving towards something called ‘multipolarity.’ We don’t really know what it looks like–if it’s going to be complete chaos or something constructive–but I definitely see an opening that did not exist before.
That said, I was quickly humbled by my own experiences. I thought that people would jump at any opportunity to exercise agency. This is where I was naive, because I didn’t realize that some people do not want agency. One of the key challenges in a multipolar world is that, in exchange for voice, you must have and use agency, take the lead and be responsible for something. But in reality, many countries are used to the U.S. taking leadership. We have yet to confront a dilemma: countries may complain about U.S. leadership and still want it. When the U.S. walks away, who will substantively fill the gaps it leaves behind? That’s one of the humbling challenges about taking polytunity seriously. There is a price to be paid for agency. It’s not just talk.
MA: You study how people react to disruption; given that, and the observations you just shared, where do you see interesting or generative thinking or action already happening around multipolarity or taking advantage of the opportunity to move toward less violent and more just futures?
YYA: On a conceptual level, what are the different responses to disruptions? I group them into three ‘buckets’. Bucket one is to ignore the disruption or make it go away; an example of this is universities deciding to ban AI. Bucket two is maladaptation, meaning you respond to the problem but you make it worse; one example would be blaming immigrants for domestic problems. Bucket three is adaptation, where you accept that change has happened, even if it’s painful, and you actively think about how to take advantage of and fit into the change.
In the context of multipolarity, one bucket asserts that multipolarity is hopeless from the start, that it will be too chaotic, so no matter how limited or withdrawn U.S. leadership becomes, nothing in the world order will change. The second sees multipolarity as a threat to U.S. primacy and acts to prevent or criticize it, even though the trend is already happening. The third bucket is adapting to multipolarity; even in the U.S., there are some positive spaces for that conversation. In an interview, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that multipolarity is actually the normal state of affairs. I find U.S. foreign policy contradictory at the current point: it welcomes multipolarity if it means that other countries are taking on more responsibility, but at the same time, it likes the appeal of U.S. primacy. There’s an unresolved tension.
That is how I use these three buckets to categorize how people respond to disruption.
MA: It is helpful to hear the larger frameworks that guide your thinking; these feel like great tools for disentangling a set of wider questions and challenges we are all facing right now, irrespective of field or focus.
I also wanted to ask you about something you mentioned before we started the interview, which was about pushback you’ve received on your work.
YYA: The pushback includes saying polytunity is just a buzzword. I find that comment interesting because polycrisis tells you that the world is scary; it has no diagnosis of the root causes and no way forward, but people happily repeat the word. With polytunity, I’m not only saying let’s move forward, I’m also offering a new way of thinking – AIM– Adaptive, Inclusive, and Moral– Political Economy – building on 20 years of my research. Plus a university course that has produced students’ applications (see “Polytunity: Gen-Z in the Age of Disruption”). Yet, it is a “buzzword.” And that is the polite comment. There are more impolite responses, including names I have been called. Why the backlash? We all have certain identities that society has assigned to us. Question is: Do I have the right identity category to talk about global crises?
For instance, because I write books with China on the cover, the question I always get is, how can this travel outside of China? Even though I’m supplying basic concepts like the difference between complex and complicated, uncertainty and risk.These are generic concepts, but the moment they are applied to China, they are tainted with narrowness. It becomes exotic, and the burden falls on me to show that this is not China-specific. I push back and ask people to consider, say, Douglas North, a revered economist whose work drew heavily on seventeenth-century England and specifically the 1688 Glorious Revolution. Has anyone ever asked him how his theory could travel outside of 17th century England? Did the burden fall on him to prove generalizability? But isn’t it absurd to assume that theories based on 17th century England travel to contemporary Kenya, while doubting the relevance of contemporary China?
When polycrisis is treated as serious, even if it’s fear-naming without solutions, while a call for agency and inclusion is dismissed, why is that? Might society apply double standards not only on people, but on cases and framings? Is it a reaction to the ideas or to who said them?
MA: I’m sorry to hear that, on both a personal and a professional level. It feels like an individual experience of what’s happening on larger levels, too, where there are people who want to go back to a prior world order under the guise of stability, but it could also be said that pushback on alternative views and futures are because they challenge their worldview and position of power in it.
YYA: Think about the biggest, most important themes in the world– for example, world orders. Who are the authority figures who come to mind? Does your list reflect the population of the world? If it doesn’t, ask why, because it’s not an accident.
Still, I took on the topic of global disruptions– because I’m not supposed to. Well, we’ll see what happens if I intrude! Just out of curiosity.
MA: I hope you keep intruding.
YYA: It can bring despair and frustration, but I try to find the humor in it and laugh a little because there is something quite funny about it as well. Once, a powerful male economist walked up to me after I gave a talk on polytunity, and he said with a tinge of cynicism, “So you’re coining terms, huh?” And my reply was, “Yeah, if you can do it, so can I.”
MA: Good for you.
YYA: We need to do more of that. Not just me, but we need more people to do that, and you must realize that any social order is in place only because of consensus. We may feel helpless, each one of us, but you are like a voter. You vote to give your consensus either through silence or participation, and you must realize that when that consensus is withdrawn, anything can change. Speaking of agency, I don’t ever believe that you need to wait for a coalition. I think those are the subsequent steps. Agency exists in each and every moment. For example, when you hear a new idea, you can choose to ignore it, support it, or laugh at it. As an individual, you’d be surprised at how many moments of agency you have each and every day.
MA: That’s a good reminder, especially when the world’s challenges can feel very big. Against the backdrop of what we have spoken about, and within your work on development and political economy, how do you think the concept of peace, however you choose to define or engage it, functions in relation to your work? Where does it feel useful, insufficient, constrained, contested?
YYA: This is where I need to ask you for your thoughts. I don’t work in peace and conflict management, but I hope to encourage everyone to apply a polytunity mindset to the work that they do– peace, for instance. What do you think?
MA: I think part of the challenge and the opportunity is that people engage with the concept of peace in different ways. However, even just digging into what that looks like and why, can help us identify some of the barriers for moving toward less violent and more just futures, as well as to learn about instances where people are thinking about ‘peace’ and how to pursue it differently than those more squarely in peace studies or practice. That is to say, I don’t think it’s for me to answer, and that there is a benefit in asking that question of as many people as possible. That’s why I’m so interested in hearing how other people are thinking about it, even if you’re not using the language of peace in your work. Even if you don’t think of yourself as a scholar of peace, I think your language of the global polytunity and what we have discussed is useful for thinking about the future of peace.
YYA: Thank you.
MA: With that in mind, from your perspective, what makes you skeptical about whether more peaceful futures remain possible, and what gives you hope?
YYA: My definition of hope is not that good things will happen and problems will go away, but that no matter what happens, there is meaning in what happens. We often fail to appreciate how much we need meaning in our lives. Desmond Tutu once said that humans can put up with suffering, but they cannot put up with lack of meaning. In the Chinese context, I can think of examples where people went through tremendous suffering, but as long as they felt, ‘I’m suffering because my children could have a better future,’ or some other meaning, they could go on.
I’m fully realistic about the difficult future in front of us. We see the climate getting worse every year, we see conflicts, and we see many norms breaking down. It is worrying. I don’t deny that. But for me, and why polytunity matters is: does this mean anything? If this just means the end of the world, then what’s the point? People need meaning, and the meaning I see is that when things break down, you have unprecedented agency if you take it. It doesn’t mean that our problems go away, but we can choose either to ignore them, to maladapt, or to adapt to them.
