We currently face a baffling paradox. While since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 a seemingly inexorable process of globalisation has been foreshadowing a peaceful and frontierless world, the number of walls across the world has been rising at a steady pace. Liberal and open societies buttressed by trade, international law and technological progress were supposed to implacably contribute to the erosion of frontiers and walls between nations. However, in a context of surging populist discourses, securitarian anxieties and identitarian politics as well as concomitant flows of migration alimented by climate change, conflict and poverty, nations have recently started to barricade themselves behind new walls.
© Chappatte, Der Spiegel www.chappatte.com
A pandemic is not just a medical emergency – it is also a political, economic, and social crisis. It implies new challenges for democratic institutions and practices, for citizenship rights and human rights as some of the restrictions on civil liberties put in place by liberal and illiberal democracies may well outlive the coronavirus. This special issue explores some tensions and dilemmas of democracies faced with the current crisis. “Politics of the Coronavirus Pandemics” addresses questions like: Can we speak of a decline in politics during the pandemic? While states have been using the full gamut of their sovereign prerogatives, has the political (temporarily) faded in the face of, for example, “expertise”? What will be the lasting impact of the rule by administrative fiat, and of emergency powers put in place in many countries? What kinds of agenda and instruments of civic activism are likely to emerge given that courts are rarely in session and public protest not permitted due to distancing rules? What are the likely consequences of these reconfigurations for democracy, governance, and welfare systems in the global South and North?
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I
Covid-19: A Modern Apocalypse or a Temporary Shock to the System?
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1
The Vaccine Race: Will Public Health Prevail over Geopolitics?
Reading time: 6 min -
2
Institutions under Stress: Covid-19, Anti-Internationalism and the Futures of Global Governance
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3
Covid-19 and Even More Unconventional Economic Policies
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4
Covid-19 and States of Emergency
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5
Pandemic as Revelation: What Does It Tell Us about People on the Move?
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6
Pandemic and Political Geographies
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7
The Western Flu: The Coronavirus Pandemic as a Eurocentric Crisis
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8
A Gendered Perspective on the Pandemic
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9
A National-Liberal Virus
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10
Depoliticising through Expertise: The Politics of Modelling in the Governance of Covid-19
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11
The Politics of Covid Apps
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12
Human Rights and Covid-19
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13
Emergency Use of Public Funds: Implications for Democratic Governance
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14
Unequal Impacts of Covid-19: Political and Social Consequences
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15
Covid, Hysteresis, and the Future of Work
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16
Populism 4.0 and Decent Digiwork
Reading time: 5 min
The issue has been produced by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy in collaboration with the Graduate Institute’s research office. It includes contributions from all of the Institute’s research centres and departments