The Politics of the Pandemic in Eastern Europe and Eurasia


Book Description

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the political impact of the COVID-19 emergency in central and eastern Europe and Eurasia. Offering a theoretical framework linking the authoritarian, post-Soviet institutional legacy with patterns of political behavior, support and governments’ policies, the expert contributors argue that domestic political regimes mediate and shape citizens’ perceptions of public health crises, and the very regimes’ political survival. The authors explore how the pandemic affected regime change, government stability, business groups and civil societies in more than 15 countries of the region from the discovery of the virus to the vaccination rollout. The studies rely on a broad range of empirical evidence from the region – survey, state statistics, ethnography and interviews. Formulating, explaining and empirically testing the causal mechanisms that drive political accountability and support through a cross-country comparison and in-depth case studies of popular and electoral support attempting to highlight any patterns specific to the region, this book contributes to studies of governance and political accountability in low-trust countries with authoritarian legacies and proclivities. Drawing on an interdisciplinary approach that brings together area studies, history, sociology and political science, it will also be of value to those interested in systematic effect of political regimes on handling public health crises.




The Politics of the Pandemic in Eastern Europe and Eurasia


Book Description

"This book provides a comprehensive overview of the political impact of the COVID-19 emergency in central and eastern Europe and Eurasia. Offering a theoretical framework linking the authoritarian, post-Soviet institutional legacy with patterns of political behavior, support, and governments' policies, the expert contributors argue that domestic political regimes mediate and shape citizens' perceptions of public health crises, and the very regimes' political survival. The authors explore how the pandemic affected regime change, government stability, business groups and civil societies in more than 15 countries of the region from the discovery of the virus to the vaccination rollout. The studies rely on a broad range of empirical evidence from the region - survey, state statistics, ethnography and interviews. Formulating, explaining and empirically testing the causal mechanisms that drive political accountability and support through a cross-country comparison and in-depth case studies of popular and electoral support attempting to highlight any patterns specific to the region, the book contributes to studies of governance and political accountability in low-trust countries with authoritarian legacies and proclivities. Drawing on an inter-disciplinary approach that brings together area studies, history, sociology, and political science it will also be of value to those interested in systematic effect of political regimes on handling public health crises"--




Aftershocks


Book Description

Two of America's leading national security experts offer a definitive account of the global impact of COVID-19 and the political shock waves it will have on the United States and the world order in the 21st Century. “Informed by history, reporting, and a truly global perspective, this is an indispensable first draft of history and blueprint for how we can move forward.” —Ben Rhodes The COVID-19 pandemic killed millions, infected hundreds of millions, and laid bare the deep vulnerabilities and inequalities of our interconnected world. The accompanying economic crash was the worst since the Great Depression, with the International Monetary Fund estimating that it will cost over $22 trillion in global wealth over the next few years. Over two decades of progress in reducing extreme poverty was erased, just in the space of a few months. Already fragile states in every corner of the globe were further hollowed out. The brewing clash between the United States and China boiled over and the worldwide contest between democracy and authoritarianism deepened. It was a truly global crisis necessitating a collective response—and yet international cooperation almost entirely broke down, with key world leaders hardly on speaking terms. Colin Kahl and Thomas Wright's Aftershocks offers a riveting and comprehensive account of one of the strangest and most consequential years on record. Drawing on interviews with officials from around the world and extensive research, the authors tell the story of how nationalism and major power rivalries constrained the response to the worst pandemic in a century. They demonstrate the myriad ways in which the crisis exposed the limits of the old international order and how the reverberations from COVID-19 will be felt for years to come.




The Covid Consensus


Book Description

Since the onset of the pandemic, progressive opinion has been clear that hard lockdowns are the best way to preserve life, while only irresponsible and destructive conservatives like Trump and Bolsonaro oppose them. But why should liberals favor lockdowns, when all the social science research shows that those who suffer most are the economically disadvantaged, without access to good internet or jobs that can be done remotely; that the young will pay the price of the pandemic in future taxes, job prospects, and erosion of public services, when they are already disadvantaged in comparison in terms of pension prospects, paying university fees, and state benefits; and that Covid's impact on the Global South is catastrophic, with the UN predicting potentially tens of millions of deaths from hunger and declaring that decades of work in health and education is being reversed. Toby Green analyses the contradictions emerging through this response as part of a broader crisis in Western thought, where conservative thought is also riven by contradictions, with lockdown policies creating just the sort of big state that it abhors. These contradictions mirror underlying irreconcilable beliefs in society that are now bursting into the open, with devastating consequences for the global poor.







Biopower in Putin’s Russia


Book Description

In this book, Makarychev and Medvedev examine the importance of biopolitics in fueling Russia’s confrontation with the West. In their view, the development of Putin’s illiberal authoritarianism was largely triggered by what they call a biopolitical turn. This shift is exemplified by the use of an increasing number of regulatory mechanisms to discipline and constrain the human body. Such political practices concern issues of sexuality, reproductive behavior, adoption, fertility, family planning, public hygiene, and demography. This turn created a new disciplinary framework for the population and the elite. Bans and restrictions of a biopolitical nature, became one of the main tools for articulating the rules of belonging in the political community and drawing its political boundaries. Biopolitical discourses have taken up the core of the Russian identity formation, which contrasts a positive “conservative Russia” with a supposedly vicious “liberal West.” The presentation of the political genealogy of the body-centric structures of power and hegemony in Russia implies their transformation from bio- to necropolitics. Necropolitical (repressive and life-depriving) components are inscribed in the biopolitical regimes of power: they form the core of Putin’s rule over Russia and are a key factor behind the war against Ukraine.




Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa


Book Description

This book explores the impact of Covid-19, and the associated state lockdown, on rural lives in a former homeland in South Africa. The 2020 Disaster Management Act saw the state sweep through rural areas, targeting funerals and other customary practices as potential ‘super-spreader’ events. This unprecedented clampdown produced widespread disruption, fear and anxiety. The authors build on path-breaking work concerning local responses to West Africa’s Ebola epidemic, and examine the HIV/AIDS pandemic, to understand the impact of the Covid crisis on these communities, and on rural Africa more broadly. To shed light on the role of custom and ritual in rural social change during the pandemic, Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa applies long-term historical and ethnographic research; theories of people’s science, local knowledge and the human economy; and fieldwork conducted in ten rural South African communities during lockdown. The volume highlights differences between developments in Southern Africa and elsewhere on the continent, while exploring how the former apartheid homelands–commonly, yet problematically, represented as former ‘labour reserves’–have since been reconstituted as new home-spaces. In short, it explains why rural people have been so angered by the state’s assault on their cultural practices and institutions in the time of Covid.




Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe


Book Description

At the end of the twentieth century, many believed the story of European political development had come to an end. Modern democracy began in Europe, but for hundreds of years it competed with various forms of dictatorship. Now, though, the entire continent was in the democratic camp for the first time in history. But within a decade, this story had already begun to unravel. Some of the continent's newer democracies slid back towards dictatorship, while citizens in many of its older democracies began questioning democracy's functioning and even its legitimacy. And of course it is not merely in Europe where democracy is under siege. Across the globe the immense optimism accompanying the post-Cold War democratic wave has been replaced by pessimism. Many new democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Asia began "backsliding," while the Arab Spring quickly turned into the Arab winter. The victory of Donald Trump led many to wonder if it represented a threat to the future of liberal democracy in the United States. Indeed, it is increasingly common today for leaders, intellectuals, commentators and others to claim that rather than democracy, some form dictatorship or illiberal democracy is the wave of the future. In Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe, Sheri Berman traces the long history of democracy in its cradle, Europe. She explains that in fact, just about every democratic wave in Europe initially failed, either collapsing in upon itself or succumbing to the forces of reaction. Yet even when democratic waves failed, there were always some achievements that lasted. Even the most virulently reactionary regimes could not suppress every element of democratic progress. Panoramic in scope, Berman takes readers through two centuries of turmoil: revolution, fascism, civil war, and - -finally -- the emergence of liberal democratic Europe in the postwar era. A magisterial retelling of modern European political history, Democracy and Dictatorship in Europe not explains how democracy actually develops, but how we should interpret the current wave of illiberalism sweeping Europe and the rest of the world.




Geopolitics for the End Time


Book Description

As we approach catastrophe, everything changes. What are the lessons from the pandemic? How well have different cultures and societies responded, and could this become a turning point in the flow of history? Before Covid, a new competition was already arising between alternative geopolitical models–but the context of this clash wasn’t yet clear. What if it takes place on neutral ground? In a state of nature, with few or no political rules, amid quickly evolving chaos? When the greatest threat to national security is no longer other states, but the environment itself, which countries might rise to the top? This book explores how Covid-19 has already transformed the global system, and how it serves as a prelude to a planet afflicted by climate change. Bruno Maçães is one of the first to see the pandemic as the dawn of a new strategic era, heralding a profoundly changed world-political landscape. Cover image: Ludwig Meidner, ‘Apocalyptic City’, 1913. © Ludwig Meidner-Archiv, Jüdisches Museum der Stadt Frankfurt am Main




European Disunion


Book Description

The European Union means many different things to its many peoples. In Germany, for example, the European project was conceived mainly as post-national, or even post-sovereign. In France, by contrast, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued the vision of a sovereign Europe; that is, an EU that would become a formidable geopolitical actor. Yet, instead, Europe has struggled to ascertain its values abroad and even domestically, facing a sovereignist rebellion from its newer member states, such as Hungary and Poland, and the departure of Britain. The eurozone crisis has undermined the EU’s economic credentials, the refugee crisis its societal cohesion, the failure to stand up to Russia its sense of purpose, and the Covid-19 pandemic its credibility as a protector of European citizens. The key argument of this book is that the multiple crises of the European project are caused by one underlying factor: its bold attempt to overcome the age of nation-states. Left unchecked, supranational institutions tend to become ever more bureaucratic, eluding control of the people they are meant to serve. The logic of technocracy is thus pitted against the democratic impulse, which the European Union is supposed to embody. Democracy in Europe has suffered as a result.