Can Europe escape the zero-sum trap?
Opinion Column by Harald Sander
Europe’s contemporary challenges – low productivity growth, rising nationalist populism and geopolitical tensions with enemies and former friends – are well known. Although they have different roots, they share a common core: the rise of zero-sum thinking. A “you win, I lose” worldview increasingly dominates individual perceptions, national politics and geopolitics. A European win-win agenda for reviving productivity through deeper integration, fostering inclusive growth and promoting mutually beneficial global cooperation is the logical antidote.
The rising zero-sum mindset
A striking feature of the recent decades is the rapidly increasing proportion of people in Western countries who view the world through a zero-sum lens. Why? After the Second World War, high economic growth improved most people’s life day by day and fostered a win-win mindset that favoured cooperative behaviour as a source of mutual benefits. As growth slowed in industrialised counties from the 1980s onward, win-lose experiences became more common, and today most people think that children will be worse off financially than their parents. An influential study shows that younger generations who have experienced less growth than their parents are also more likely to hold zero-sum views – in the US and many other countries.
Why does it matter?
- Politically, nationalist and anti-EU populists exploit zero-sum thinking by painting a picture of a world in which “we” (our country, our people, our ethnic group) always lose when “the others” (foreign countries, migrants, “elites”) win.
- Economically, the focus on win-lose competition within Europe prevents the EU from taking full advantage of productivity-boosting win-win cooperation.
- Geopolitically, zero-sum thinking legitimises the pursuit of global dominance by major powers, thereby marginalizing a politically fragmented Europe.
The political antidote is therefore a policy mix that addresses all three challenges simultaneously, illustrated by the triple-I triangle of European revival.
Deeper European integration is necessary to achieve the urgently needed productivity gains. These form the basis for national policies of inclusive growth, which are key to quell nationalist populism. This, in turn, will lend support to strengthen the EU’s international leverage to promote international win-win cooperation.
Economic integration is the vulnerable key
Last year's report by Mario Draghi is the blueprint for reviving mutually beneficial European integration to overcome the EU Member States’ enduring focus on national agendas. The key elements speak for themselves: completion of the single market; a joint and integrated industrial, competition and trade policy; an EU-wide Capital Market Union; and massively increased investments in joint public goods (e.g. energy networks, defence, etc.). Unfortunately, progress remains frustratingly slow. Nationalist populism and populist governments, possibly soon in even more Member States, are the biggest threat to the badly needed push to European integration, that must be contained to achieve Draghi-type win-win integration.
Nationalist populists exploit zero-sum thinking
A widely accepted definition describes populism as an ideology that separates society into two antagonistic groups: the “pure people“ and the “corrupt elites“. The “pure people” are viewed as morally superior and therefore have the right to govern. Since they are seen as a homogeneous group, there is no room for pluralism, divergent opinions, and checks and balances, which are viewed as instruments of the corrupt elites. Hence, nationalist populism is both anti-elitist and anti-pluralist.
Why do people vote for populists who harm them?
When in power, the record of populist policymakers is disappointing, often harming especially those “pure people”. But why do people vote for them? One answer is that people fall for demagoguery, propagated by some traditional media outlets, and amplified in the echo-chambers of social media. Populists greatly facilitate this by exploiting zero-sum thinking: if “elites win” is interpreted as “pure people lose”, then supposed “elite projects” are suspected harming the “normal people.” Unfortunately, the experience of “normal people” with perceived elite projects, such as unfettered globalisation, the “bailout of banks” during the 2008/9 financial crisis, and austerity policy during the Euro crisis, often confirms this zero-sum view and thus fuels support for populists. A related argument holds that “not fully informed voters” may interpret the anti-establishment (and occasionally grotesque) behaviour of populists as a signal that their policies will be in their favour. Their often disappointed hopes are thus based on the illusion that ”the enemy of my enemy is my friend”.
Inclusive growth can curb populism
Nationalist populism is the ugly political mirror image of a zero-sum mindset in a world of low growth, regressive income distribution, and poorly managed financial crises and hyper-globalisation. Consequently, a Draghi-type productivity boost can only be the necessary condition for curbing nationalist populism. To be sufficient, EU member states must ensure that this economic growth is truly inclusive, in particular by creating “good jobs” that offer not only money but also self-esteem, and by targeting labour-enhancing over labour-replacing AI and other digital technologies. In other words, Europe must re-invent its growth model not as a copy but as an attractive alternative to those of its geopolitical competitors.
Overcoming win-lose geopolitics
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech of at the 2026 Davos meeting was spot-on regarding the formerly as cooperative perceived hegemon’s turn to a zero-sum worldview. John Mearsheimer, a proponent of the realist school of international relation, argues that big countries prioritise relative power over absolute power. If they do, the consequences are grave: the pursuit of absolute power aims to “make us stronger”, while targeting relative power aims to make “us stronger than others”. In the worst case, geopolitical actions are considered successful even if they hurt us – as long as they harm our rivals even more.
Mattoo et al. argue that “unless domination becomes the sole objective of each rival, a role for mutually beneficial trade policy cooperation persists“. Put less positively and less cautiously: the more radical and geographically widespread the zero-sum mentality becomes, the more severe the consequences will be for one’s own population.
Geopolitically, Europe should thus capitalise on its still powerful economy by speaking with one voice. However, the EU should not only engage in plurilateral or bilateral agreements, but also assume the vacant position of a benevolent broker of mutually beneficial international cooperation, thereby adopting geopolitical responsibility. If the EU acts together with other “adults in the room”, a renewed and fit-for-geopolitics multilateralism still has a chance of survival.
Source: Own Graph, Data Source: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.K
The overwhelming costs of today's non-Europe
In the 1980s, the mourned costs of non-Europe were about foregone economic benefits. Today they are about the future of Europe. The EU must embrace the idea of a mutually beneficial Europe as the globally attractive alternative to major powers that have succumbed to zero-sum thinking. For a positive European vision all three challenges must be addressed simultaneously and without exception: productivity gains through European integration, inclusiveness to contain nationalist populism, and acting united as a cooperative and benevolent global power. To draw on Mario Draghi again and paraphrase his famous words: this time it is essential that the EU and the wider non-EU Europe will ”do whatever it takes“, preferably as a federation, if necessary, at least as a “coalition of the willing”.
About the author - Harald Sander
Harald Sander is a Professor Emeritus of Economics and International Economics at TH Köln, where he directs the Institute of Global Business and Society and holds a Jean Monnet Chair of the European Union (Grant: 2014-17). At MSM he has held various faculty position at the professorial level from 1990 until his retirement in 2025 and is currently contributing as a consultant to MSM’s Executive PhD programme. He is also a fellow of the Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE) at Maastricht University. He has been a visiting researcher at various institution, such as the International Monetary Fund, the Centre for Contemporary Europe Research Centre at the University of Melbourne, and the Global Business Institute at New York University.
His main research areas are global economics, European and global banking market integration, and financial crises. He has published extensively in leading international journals and has authored and edited several books. As an occasional blogger, he has contributed op-eds to outlets like the LSE-EUROPP Blog and The Conversation. His most recent monograph “Understanding the New Global Economy. A European Perspective” has been published by Routledge in 2022.
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