After the outbreak of COVID-19 – a virus constituting a genuinely worldwide risk – fear internationalised in just a few weeks. As the COVID crisis has profoundly shaken societies on a global scale it has contributed to a reconfiguration – perhaps a multiplication – of risks and their perceptions. While foremost constituting a biological hazard, the pandemic has large repercussions on other types of risks, ranging from long-term economic and digital disruption to psychological distress and political confrontation. The nature and frontiers of risks are thus moving as the multilateral system, the most adequate framework to deal with global risks, is ailing and current risk mitigation strategies are increasingly put to question. The six articles of the present Dossier explore these changing hierarchies of risk and the underpinning structural issues that endanger our existence.
© 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?
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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