At the end of the 20th century, there was a consensus that liberal democracy and globalisation had triumphed and that our biggest threats had largely been defeated. Yet, this way of thinking now feels troublingly short-sighted.

Today, many western democracies face economic stagnation, institutional sclerosis and cultural division, at a time when geopolitical risks have increased. Global economic power is shifting east, war has erupted in Europe and the Middle East, mass migration and ageing are reshaping populations, and AI looks set to transform society. Political leaders are grappling with what to do.

Our summit last year, The Great Stagnation, explored ways to encourage economic growth and reinvigorate faith in progress. This year we will look at how the drive for progress and growth is affected by geopolitics, and how state capacity will need to adapt.

Will developed nations need to rebuild hard and soft power? How should leaders respond to trade wars, sanctions, and supply chain disruption? Will technological innovation be enough to tackle hostile forces or problems like climate change? Should governments try to increase industrial capacity? Will free markets and liberal ideas be less or more important in the face of national rivalry?

Speakers include:

Samo Burja, political scientist and president of Bismarck Analysis, a political risk consultancy

Dominic Cummings, political strategist and former No10 Chief Adviser under Boris Johnson

Lord Adonis, Labour peer, former government minister and Director of the No 10 Policy Unit under Tony Blair

Elisabeth Braw, Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at Atlantic Council and author of Goodbye Globalization: The Return of a Divided World (2024)

Ian Hogarth CBE, Investor and entrepreneur; co-founder of Songkick; chair of Phasecraft, a leading quantum computing start-up; Chair of the UK Government’s AI Foundation Model Taskforce

Joel Kotkin, Presidential Fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange and author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class (2020) 

Yascha Mounk, Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University and author of The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time (2023)

Dan Wang, technology analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics and visiting scholar at the Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center

Professor Richard Jones, Vice-President for Innovation and Regional Economic Development and Professor of Materials Physics and Innovation Policy, University of Manchester

Hilary Salt, actuary and former partner at First Actuarial LLP, a business she co-founded 20 years ago that now employs over 400 people across the UK

Sam Bowman, founding editor of Works in Progress

Ian Leslie, Conflicted: Why Arguments Are Tearing Us Apart and How They Can Bring Us Together