During one of our Global Politics class, all students participated in a board game that required the following concepts: globalization and interdependence.
The outline of the game is to play as different individuals who have special abilities, where from Georgia, Atlanta, they are dispatched to prevent the outbreak of disease by traveling all around the world. Mainly, it’s the idea that expertise from different countries is sent to benefit other countries, who may not have that skill of one of our roles, to defeat a disease.
Globalization, which is the ability of one country to influence another was present during the game. How? Once the roles would eradicate the disease, it would never come back, thanks to a cure. But, perhaps the skills of one individual benefited a nation. Nations affected by the disease would solidify their ability to be more prepared for any epidemics that would arise in the future, thanks to foreign expertise. Hence, those specialists who aimed to combat the disease managed to influence the way a nation approached an epidemic.
Interdependence, which is where actors come together to work towards on a situation together, was key in this game; this is because a single player could not have done it by themselves. In real life, it could be down to a lack of expertise, capital, or resources. Without additional support, it would be extremely ambitious for one individual to take on a disease that aims to infect the entire world. Hence, when there were more players, there was an ability for players to move around the board, fighting the disease in different countries, while we all stayed in communication, ultimately increasing the efficiency of our method to eradicate the disease.
What this board game demonstrates is how important interdependence and globalisation is. Without it, the difficulty to tackle the issue would be immense.
