As was repeated six times by French President Emmanuel Macron during his presidential address on March 16, 2020, the world is at war with an invisible and elusive enemy that has forced all countries to implement extraordinary measures. Following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease outside mainland China, all countries have had to impose quarantine, the lockdown and confinement of entire cities, close their borders, and severely restrict their citizens’ freedom. Like it has been the case following all other wars humanity has faced, this crisis may lead to profound political changes and affect the world order. Therefore, it is important to try to identify the lessons we should learn from this crisis and how the world may potentially look once this crisis will be behind us. These are tough questions to answer while we are still at war with this virus. However, one thing is certain: COVID-19 has accelerated the development of trends that already existed, and this pandemic will most likely serve as a trigger for long-lasting systemic changes. In the pages that follow, I focus on three elements.
First, this crisis has revealed important problems related to political authority and community spirit in Western states. This is best evidenced by the numerous charismatic statesmen who have been exposed as amateur rulers who have shown their lack of proper leadership abilities and the absence of civic sense on the part of countless citizens who have displayed anti-social behaviours. Consequently, this has led Liberal democracies to adopt a series of liberticidal policies. Although these decisions have been welcomed by the population, this is nonetheless a worrisome feature that illustrates the profound social crisis to which these societies are victim, providing a clear example of the loss of community spirit, or a sense of commitment to the greater good that usually comes with the virtues of solidarity. As the first chapter will show, liberal democracies have followed this path for many reasons, namely because since the 1970s, political elites have lost control of the economy and have placed emphasis on the satisfaction of people’s negative freedom. These two elements have led politics to become an empty shell; consequently, politics have become the playground of leaders who have shown a profound lack of leadership during this crisis. Paradoxically, this lack of authority, combined with the disappearance of community spirit, has led individuals to cry for measures that are detrimental to their freedom. Indeed, faced with the hesitations of their leaders and the individualistic behaviours of some of their fellow citizens, many believe that the only way to protect themselves from this deadly virus is through harsh confinement, quarantine, and the aid of technologies used to track people’s movements. To paraphrase Alexis de Tocqueville, the excess of freedom to which people have been accustomed over the last fifty years has led them to ask for measures that are all but favourable to their liberty. This is indeed a risky path for Liberal democracy, as once this crisis has passed, these measures may be perceived as having been highly effective, and they may thus become permanently instated.
Second, this health crisis will most likely open a new chapter in the history of inter-state relations. Indeed, analysts and world leaders have identified our open borders and the free flow of people and goods as primary reasons for the quick spread of the coronavirus disease. This is why the re-affirmation of states’ sovereignty has been a dominant feature of this crisis, and citizens have found reassurance and a feeling of safety in the fact that they are now protected by their national borders. In the long run, we may witness the emergence of growing nationalism and a willingness to recalibrate globalization at the nation-state level. In hindsight, the primary institutional victim of this erosion of global trade and national selfishness appears to be the European Union, which, during this crisis, has indeed shown an incapacity to generate community spirit and solidarity between member states that have conversely been left on their own. However, even if a reorganization of globalization results from this crisis, it is not likely to happen at the national level. Conversely, the rescaling of international trade at the regional level is the most promising possibility. In light of the discussion presented in the first chapter, this outcome may become an improbable twist of fortuna that could play a determinant role in the reformation of political authority and the revival of community spirit not only at the national level but also at the supra-national one. From this perspective, the regionalization of globalization that this crisis may cause may constitute an unforeseen but welcomed second chance for the European Union to reinvent itself as a genuine ethical community: something it has been unable to generate ever since its beginning.
Finally, as individuals have become accustomed to seeing the ‘Made in China’ tag on almost every manufacturing good that surrounds us, this rescaling of globalization to the national or regional level may severely hamper China’s economy, which has increasingly depended on its capacity for global exportation. The initial consequences of the coronavirus disease outbreak provide evidence for this fact; China’s inability to export its goods abroad due to the closing of borders severely impacted the country’s GDP, witnessing its first contraction since 1992. Thus, we may conclude that tomorrow’s world order will be highly unfavourable to the world’s second economy, which might trigger what Graham Allison has called the ‘Thucydides’s trap’, an open conflict that occurs when a rising power is prevented from transforming its ambitions into reality by those who are currently in a position to impose what the norm ought to be (in this case the United States and, to a lesser extent, the European Union). To avoid war as the outcome of this public health crisis, we must take this threat seriously and be wary that actions that emerge out of hatred against those deemed as responsible for the outbreak may have devastating effects in the long-run. However, there are reasons to believe that this fear is largely exaggerated and that the rescaling of globalization may be welcomed by Beijing, as it would accelerate the economic trend China has been pursuing over the last couple of years through various attempts to become economically self-sufficient. In this sense, China’s ambitions will not be hampered by this potential shift in globalization. Conversely, it will fit into the country’s strategy and ultimately be beneficial for its power and prestige.
Nur-Sultan, April 2020.