Class 4 Comtemporary International Affairs

Realists will tell it is the moment for Ukraine to enter the EU. Maybe Ukraine would have to
sacrifice a part of their territory. This would comfort the spheres of influence, the
containment strategy.

Effects of COVID on world politics.

How did it change the world? What was a successful country strategy?

Diagnostic :
The world wasn’t prepared.
There has been significant domestic reactions.
Governments took swift and massive action to mitigate economic impact.

Dimensions of analysis:
-Economic impact;
-Rising nationalism and isolationism;
-Increased inequality between rich and poor countries, and also at the national level;
-a new multilateralism -> some people demand reforms, this instances are very good
examples about normative things that could have been done.

Economic impact:
It might be safe to say that Trump lost the election because of the way he managed the
pandemic.
Globalization will not reverse, but the pace and paradigm may be adjusted.

Increased inequality:
polarization between rich and poor became more acute under the pandemic.
We saw the inequalities between countries who have a good health system and the others.
The trend of population migrating from countries with inadequate health-care capacity to
countries with better medical services will be greatly after the pandemic.
There will be a lot of debate, international conference, about how the global governance
should be reformed.

Multilateralism:
Liberal multilateralism cooperation didn’t succeed. States were not prepared for the
pandemic.
The international organizations talked a lot but didn’t act much.

Global governance gaps:

Health security gap between the demand for medical supplies and the shortage of supply
capacity.
Information gap between scientific information on disease prevention and control and the
proliferation of negative and misleading reporting in mainstream media and social media.
Policy gap between massive monetary easing policies and drastic unstopping volatility in
financial markets.

There was a lot of discussions about what regime could manage the pandemic the better, a
democracy or an authoritarian system. Trust has been an issue for many governments.

Domestic effects :
-States of emergency
-Suspension of elections
-Suspension/alteration of democratic activities (parliamentary meetings and debates).
The pandemic put a lot of pression on the democracies.

Negative transformations of domestic politics:

-The state was brought in.
-Highlighted and exacerbated long-simmering income and racial disparities.

State of emergency:
-Playing with fear has been a tool for non-democratic countries, but the covid made
democracies use that strategy.
-The state of emergency was driven by external and internal factors.
-Weak democracies with poor preparedness have been considerably more like to opt for an
emergency.

Democracy or autocracy ?
-strong authoritarian regimes find easier to manage restrictions, but lack transparency and
the ability to empower civil society and open dialogs.
-Having a democracy by itself is no guarantee of efficacy.