Last Sunday, Brazilians returned Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to the presidency with just over 51% of the vote, against 48% for Senator Flávio Bolsonaro. It was the first time since direct elections returned in 1989 that a candidate who lost the first round went on to win the runoff. Markets were caught off guard: a fund tracking Brazilian stocks fell 25% in premarket trading on Monday.
Whatever one makes of the outcome, the episode captures something larger. In a single weekend, Brazil’s perceived distance from investors, partners and employers shifted. Nothing moved on the map; expectations did. And Brazil is not alone. The United States holds its midterm elections on November 3, and 2027 already counts 63 elections across 43 countries.
What does this crowded calendar tell us about our ability to connect in the world economy? Less about disconnection than the headlines suggest, and more about how proximity is changing shape.
Proximity has become a political variable
My colleague Pankaj Ghemawat’s CAGE framework taught managers that distance between countries is cultural, administrative, geographic and economic, not just a matter of kilometers. Of the four, administrative and political distance used to move slowly. Trade agreements lasted decades. Allies stayed allies.
That is no longer the case. A new government can reset tariffs, work permits, investment screening or data rules within months. Proximity that took years to build can be redrawn by a ballot.
The reach is widening, too. The World Economic Forum estimates that geoeconomic fragmentation now costs the global economy between $213 and $307 billion a year, and that it is spreading from rivals to allies such as the EU, Canada, Japan and South Korea. Political closeness no longer guarantees economic closeness. Distance has become volatile and, increasingly, scheduled.
Fragmentation is not disconnection
It is tempting to read all this as the world simply pulling apart. Yet, the data suggest otherwise. UNCTAD’s outlook for 2026 is that trade is changing where and how it happens rather than shrinking. Countries trade more within political and regional blocs, and tensions redirect flows instead of stopping them. Globalization is being rewired, not reversed.
Put these two trends together and proximity is not disappearing. It is becoming selective. Within blocs, ties deepen: aligned partners invest more, share more data and move people more easily. Across blocs, ties thin and turn transactional, exposed to the next election or sanction.
Proximity starts to look like club membership, and its costs fall unevenly. In the WEF’s most extreme scenario, countries outside the major blocs, mostly emerging and developing economies, could lose 10.7% of output, against a 6.4% global decline. The same holds for people. Professionals whose careers and families span blocs may find their mobility narrowing just as their bridging skills become most valuable.
What this means for global work
- Treat the election calendar as a strategic input. Not a reason to freeze assignments, but a prompt to build scenarios and decision points into mobility and market plans.
- Invest in relational proximity where structural proximity is fragile. Policies change overnight; trust between people does not. Personal networks and long-standing partnerships keep collaboration alive when formal ties thin.
- Value the bridge-builders. Multicultural employees, returnees and long-term expatriates can translate across widening divides. They are a strategic asset, not a compliance headache.
- Resist the comfort of the club. Building proximity only with like-minded partners narrows the perspectives, markets and talent that make global work worthwhile.
Choosing our proximity
Brazil’s vote will not be the last to move the map in the coming months. The lesson is not to wait for elections to settle before committing across borders. As I argue in my new book, Proximity, distance is not a problem to eliminate but a space to manage; it requires investing in commonalities without erasing relevant differences. Fragmentation makes that investment more fragile, but also more deliberate.
Ballots can redraw the lines between countries. They cannot decide on their own who stays connected across them. That part is still up to us.