Browsing mega-trends: IR 4.0

Thirty glorious years had to end; we oiled up in crisis. Next, there was a Consensus. We got flattened; end of history. Then, the world became somehow bumpy again in a split between Davos and Porto Alegre; the super-structure appeared not so consensual after all. In the meantime, we became financialised and value-chained. The end of the end of history ended up with Terror and then, sure enough, we had to be de-financialised to bail out finance. Keynes the Great Return did not event, we got humbled in Austerity in an even greater split between the 1 and the 99% awaiting that something will eventually trickle down. All of that, we are being told, will soon be behind us: a 4.0 great dawn is coming. There has been indeed a fair deal of effervescence about the 'Future of Work' lately. The first objective of this exposé is thus to have a look at what is in store by browsing reports and statements from a range of international agencies and stakeholders (e.g. OECD, WEF, ILO, ITUC, etc.) including critical labour studies in an attempt to identify the narratives, prospects and concerns that dominate the scene. The second objective is to raise some methodological questions. Essentially, if we assume that Globalisation was the last mega-trend, can we transfer – by means of revolution – insights from our understanding of globalisation to our undertaking of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, if any?

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AIRAANZ Annual Conference 2020: Doing things differently? IR practice and research beyond 2020

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