{"id":4745,"date":"2020-03-31T16:26:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-31T15:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/upgrade-gcrf-compass\/?page_id=4745"},"modified":"2022-01-18T11:41:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T11:41:38","slug":"crisis-reflections","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/outputs\/crisis-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"Crisis Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Disclaimer:<\/strong> All critical reflections of the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the political, social, economic, cultural and human aspects of our lives, presented on this page are expressed in a personal capacity only. All COMPASS affiliate members<\/em> are invited to contribute their reflections.<\/div>\n

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Chandler, David (2020) \u2018Coronavirus and the end of resilience\u2019, March 25, available here<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Resilience appears to be the key policy buzzword of our times. International organizations, as diverse as the United Nations and the European Union, have now adopted resilience strategies across various policy areas \u2013 highlighted by the UN\u2019s risk and resilience framework for its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN, 2017), the EU\u00a0<\/span>Action Plan for Resilience<\/em>\u00a0(European Commission, 2013), the European Union Global Strategy (EU, 2016) and other policy documents. This short piece argues that global responses to the Coronavirus appear to demonstrate that policy discourses of resilience may be one (so far, unremarked) casualty of the Coronavirus outbreak.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Korosteleva, E. & Petrova, I. (2020) ‘Resilience is dead. Long live resilience?’ 9 April, originally published with LSE\/Hertie Dahrendorf Forum, available here<\/a>. Its reprinted versions are also available as commentary on the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) page<\/a> and PDF<\/a><\/h3>\n

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Reflections about the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic and its implications for Europe and the world engendered the view that \u2018resilience is dead\u2019. In this post, Elena Korosteleva & Irina Petrova argue that what we observe today is the demise of the \u2018neo-liberal\u2019 framing of resilience. Meanwhile, the resilience of human grit lives on.<\/p>\n

Barotzoda, F. (2020) ‘Tajikistan and Coronavirus’, 13 May, available here<\/a><\/h3>\n

This paper offers an overview of the pandemic situation and government response to it in Tajikistan, which until recently has not had public scrutiny and official Action Plan to address the health crisis. The latter requires more than just financial injection on the part of government: it requires a collective action of resilience to protect both the frontline staff and the population at large.<\/p>\n

Hussain, Z. (2020) \u2018Fieldresearch in lockdown: revisiting slow science in the time of COVID-19\u2019, 29 April, originally published by LSE blog, available here<\/a><\/h3>\n

As we re-frame our research questions and objectives to be reflective of the new difficulties\u2019 communities face during COVID-19, how do we reimagine being in the field?\u00a0Zahra Hussain,\u00a0founder and director of\u00a0Laajverd<\/a>, looks at how we can revisit, rethink and rearticulate our positions as researchers, employ our work with care, and re-think our engagement with our research\u00a0fields.<\/p>\n

\"\"Zahra Hussain is the Founder and Director of Laajverd, she leads the Academy for Democracy -Laajverd Visiting School project and is a Post-Doctoral Fellow on the GCRF Gender Justice and Security Hub. Zahra\u2019s research engages with questions around cultural landscapes, at-risk heritages and the practices and patterns of everyday life in remote mountain villages in Pakistan. She tweets @ZahraHussain31. Zahra is a new GCRF COMPASS affiliate, and part to the new GCRF Cluster project AGRE, 2020\/21 (with Durham and Kent)<\/p>\n

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Azmanova, A. (2020) \u2019The Nascent Paradigm Shift in the EU\u2019, 28 April, originally published with Social Europe <\/i>available here<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n
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Emergency action to enhance healthcare and unemployment insurance might signal a paradigm shift for the union from market integration to providing public goods.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Amid warnings of the impending collapse<\/a> of the European Union, in the face of member-states\u2019 difficulties in adopting a collective response<\/a> to the coronavirus pandemic and a strategy to finance the recovery, the European Commission has undertaken two initiatives which will be celebrated by some as an emergent federal government\u2014and bemoaned by others, for the same reason.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Lai-Ha Chan and P. Lee (2020) \u2018Credibility Deficit: The WHO in the COVID-19 Pandemic\u2019, 27 April, available here<\/a><\/h3>\n
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Exactly a decade ago, one of us wrote a commentary on the WHO in light of the outbreaks of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and A\/H1N1. It argued that the WHO had become the most powerful international organisation in the world. \u2018Power\u2019 is defined as the ability to perform and act effectively to get a desired outcome, in which legitimacy is the key (https:\/\/jech.bmj.com\/content\/64\/2\/97<\/a>). As the global health organisation, the WHO advisories have proven to be remarkably influential during the SARS and the A\/H1N1 outbreaks. A decade on, however, the WHO is now suffering a credibility deficit. One has to wonder why the reputation and credibility of the organisation is now open to dispute. This legitimacy crisis is attributable to three particular concerns over how the health organisation has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Azmanova, A. (2020) \u2018Precarity, not inequality is what ails the 99%\u2019, 27 April, originally published in\u00a0<\/span>Financial Times, <\/i>available here <\/a>and PDF version<\/a><\/h3>\n

Our predicament is that wealth has become the only apparent source of safety
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Merheim-Eyre, I. (2020) \u2018COVID-19, Resilience and the Limits of Rationalist Universalism\u2019,\u00a0reprinted by E-IR on 21 April, available here<\/a><\/b><\/h3>\n

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The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the realities of humanity: our strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices. Humans are, after all, all too human. So does this mean that our societies lack resilience to weather the current storm, or are we looking for resilience in the wrong places? And how can democratic societies strengthen their resilience to be able to face internal and external challenges?<\/p>\n

Paikin, Z. (2020) \u2018Canadian Foreign Policy in the Post-COVID World\u2019, 20 April, originally published by GLOBALBRIEF, available here<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

\"\"For the past several years \u2013 if not decades \u2013 the international order has been situated in a period of transition. As such, the specific impact of the novel coronavirus on global politics remains largely to be determined. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify some early implications for Canadian foreign policy and international strategy.<\/p>\n

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Apostolidis, P & A. Azmanova (2020) \u2018In a Pandemic, We\u2019re more Precarious Than Ever\u2019, 16 April, available here<\/a>, originally published by Jacobin.<\/h3>\n

Precarity has been rising for decades but now, in a pandemic, job insecurity meets physical vulnerability in new and terrifying ways.<\/p>\n

Sakwa, R<\/b>. (2020) \u2018Beyond Normality: coronavirus and state of transformation\u2019, 14 April, originally published by the Valdai Club, available in Russian<\/a> and English<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"\u00a0A crisis is a moment of reflection in the life of a community. The response to a challenge is as important as the summons itself. In the case of Covid-19, the crisis is the most profound in living memory. Like a neutron bomb, it destroys people but not the physical infrastructure. It prowls unseen, and the threat of contagion pushes people apart. No less important, it undermines accustomed models of normality, the \u2018common sense\u2019 of an era, and breaks boundaries that had hitherto been sacrosanct.<\/p>\n

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Turarbekova, R<\/b>. (2020) \u2018Global Challenges and the impact of coronavirus on politics: from modest examples of resilience by local communities to ineffective actions of global actors\u2019, 11 April, available (in Russian) here<\/a>.<\/h3>\n

\"\"\u00a0This short piece reflects on the inadequacies of national and global governance in the face of the pandemic; while giving heed to the local, modest and unflashy examples of resilience displayed by ordinary people, in support of each, in Belarus.<\/p>\n

Roza Turarbekova<\/b> is\u00a0Associate Professor and\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Director of the Centre for Eurasian and European Studies\u00a0<\/span>at the Department of\u00a0International Relations, BSU, and a member of GCRF COMPASS. She focuses on\u00a0<\/span>current issues of foreign policy of the countries of the Middle East and Central Asia, especially to the issues of Islamic factor in international relations. For more information see here:\u00a0<\/span>https:\/\/minskdialogue.by\/en\/team\/experts\/roza-turarbekova<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Khasanov, U. (2020) ‘Some Aspects of the Central Asian Economic Development’, 10 April (in Korean) available here<\/a><\/h3>\n

Originally published by\u00a0<\/span>the EMERiCs – Emerging Countries Knowledge Information of the\u00a0<\/span>Korea Institute for International Economic Policy. English version available here<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Galbraith, J. (2020) \u2019The Pandemic and capitalism: Will we learn from this\u00a0<\/span>crisis<\/span>\u00a0that our present\u00a0<\/span>precocity<\/span>\u00a0capitalism must be brought to an end?<\/span>\u2019<\/span>\u00a08 April,\u00a0<\/span>available<\/span>\u00a0here<\/a><\/span>. Originally published by Democracy: a Journal of Ideas.\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

n the crisis now upon us, the issue before the Anglo-American side is whether the reality of our situation will now sink in. Will we recognize, in time, the need to mobilize all our resources, to socialize our health system and keep the supply chains open until the virus can be contained? Will we realize that when this is done, life will not be what it was before, and that a vast reorganization of economy and society will be necessary? Or will the neoliberal ideologues in control succeed in squelching that debate\u2014which they are trying to do, at this writing, by focusing on bailouts and stimulus in the belief that somehow the bubbles now bursting can be reinflated in a few months? Will we remain mired in illusions of growth, with or without equity and inclusion? Or will we now and finally displace those illusions, with a new wave that understands the nature of precarity capitalism and what must be done, as Albena Azmanova has so ably set forth in\u00a0<\/span>Capitalism on Edge.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gromyko, A.<\/b> (2020) \u2018Coronavirus as a factor in world politics\u2019, 8 April, originally published in the Vestnik of the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences (in Russian), available here<\/a><\/h3>\n
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\"\"The article is dedicated to the impact of corona virus COVID-19 on international relations. The state of affairs in world politics before and after the start of the epidemic is explored. The author describes the reaction of different countries to the crisis, the instrumentalization of the pandemic for political purposes. The attention is drawn to the situation in the sphere of freedom of movement and to the role of a nation-state. The author looks into ideological and geopolitical di- mensions of the pandemic. One of the conclusions concerns the risks of heightened rivalry among major powers. It is demonstrated that the crisis is being used for anti-Russia propaganda. Also in the focus of the research are interpretations of USA \u2013 China competition by the Western expert com- munity in light of the pandemic. The author poses a question about the ability of political leaders to use the current situation for deconfliction and collective actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alexey Gromyko<\/strong> <\/span><\/a>is\u00a0<\/span>\u0421orresponding Member of RAS, Director of Institute of Europe <\/span>RAS, Head of Chair of Theory and History of International Relations, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>E-mail: <\/span>alexey@gromyko.ru<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Umarov, A. (2020) \u2018COVID-19: lessons for Central Asia and implications for the foreign policy\u2019 in Russian<\/a>\u00a0and English<\/a>, 6 April<\/h3>\n
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Current crisis tests the levels of preparedness of Central Asia for further regional political cooperation, reduction of trade barriers, economic growth and joint resolution of many lingering regional problems of the past. This piece explores the current challenges and opportunities presented by the crisis for the region.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Azmanova, A.(2020) ‘Coronavirus: is this Snark in fact a Boojum? On the future of capitalism after the pandemic’, 4 April, available here<\/a>. Originally published by Open Democracy.<\/h3>\n

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We watch, spellbound, as our elderly, our jobs, and our lifesavings softly and suddenly vanish in the spreading contamination. As we do so, we might ask: is this more than your typical natural disaster? Might this be the end of the way we live, of the way we produce, consume, and navigate our existence? In brief, can capitalism \u2013 a society that venerates private initiative and the pursuit of profit, a society that believes prosperity and happiness rest on \u201con buying everything in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest\u201d (as the historian Eric Hobsbawm famously put it) \u2013 can such a society survive the coronavirus?<\/span><\/div>\n

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Azmanova, A. <\/b>(2020) \u2018Our neoliberal war on the pandemic\u2019, 3 April, available here<\/a>. Originally published by the Institute for Human Sciences.<\/span><\/h3>\n
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In fighting the pandemic, our societies are deploying the very same policy logic that created our current predicament. Neoliberalism \u2013 the policy doctrine that has prevailed in Western democracies since the 1980s has two pillars: (1) individuals are held responsible for a thriving society; (2) governments are held responsible for a thriving business environment. Conspicuously absent is the third ingredient that allows privately affluent societies to truly thrive \u2013 a robust public sector.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Zheng, Huawei (2020) \u2019Tough measures are taken as China tries to reopen its economy\u2019, April 3, available here<\/a> <\/b><\/h3>\n
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Amongst the major global economies, China seems to be now in a better position to reopen its economy in a gradual and orderly way. The national focus has been shifted towards dealing with the imported cases (which accounts for the majority of the new cases now in China), as the overseas travellers are coming back from the areas hit by this pandemic.\u00a0This piece looks at the measures China takes to address the latter problem, which may be a good model to follow by Europe and the US in the future when they turn the corner in handling the global outbreak.<\/span><\/p>\n

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XU Qinhua \u00a0(2020)\u00a0\u2018Great changes in global energy\u00a0patterns cause the collapse of international oil prices\u2019 3 April, available\u00a0here<\/a><\/b><\/h3>\n
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In this reflection piece Professor Xu from Renmin University (China) explores the implications of the fallen crude oil prices, pushed by the COVID-19 global pandemic. While discussing the crisis\u2019s gloomy implications for the health of global economy, she notes that the current crisis could also serve as a \u2018good crisis\u2019, to force us to rethink our relationship with nature and find better and more sustainable ways to live with the Anthropocene.<\/p>\n

XU Qinhua<\/strong>\u00a0is Professor at School of International Studies, vice dean at National Academy of Development and Strategy, and director at Center for International Energy and Environment Strategy Studies, Renmin University of China. She is also GCRF COMPASS great friend and colleague.<\/p>\n

Preiherman, Y. (2020) \u2018<\/span>Pandemic and the East European jungles<\/a>\u2019, Global Brief, 27 March [In Russian], originally published by Global Brief.<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"\"\u00a0Pandemic observations often associate the crisis with a jungle – where the fittest, the strongest and of course, the luckiest would\u00a0survive within a system of states, when one transposes it to politics. Perhaps, survival is too strong a word, however it may still be fitting to describe the post-pandemic situation, which will inevitably produce differentiation. Some states will come out of the crisis\u00a0considerably affected, and need to to\u00a0<\/span>rethink their coping strategies, both internally and externally.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Bargues, P. (2020) ‘ A planetary retreat to contain the coronavirus: Resilience in times of catastrophe’, March 26, available here<\/a><\/h3>\n
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In this post, Pol Bargu\u00e9s examines the social consequences of the \u2018planetary retreat\u2019 that the world is undertaking to combat the Coronavirus. Please also see\u00a0this video<\/a>\u00a0by Albert Kuhn and Pol Bargu\u00e9s that illustrates the article. To read more of Pol\u2019s work on resilience please see here<\/a><\/p>\n

Preiherman, Y. (2020) \u2018COVID-19 that Accelerates the Geopolitical Time\u2019, 23 March, Commentary 43, available <\/span>here<\/b><\/a>. Originally published by Minsk Dialogue Council on International Relations.<\/span><\/h3>\n
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The new coronavirus pandemic has taken over the global media agenda. Researchers, politicians, officials and journalists have put aside other priorities and focus exclusively on one thing, seeking to apply their expertise amidst total confusion and uncertainty. One concept that became their shared viewpoint at quite an early phase was that the world would never be the same again after COVID-19.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Ferreira, Carles (2020) ‘<\/strong>Covid-19: \u2026and when they woke up, the nation-state was still there’, March 17, available here<\/a><\/b><\/h3>\n
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This article highlights the rediscovery of the nation-state in the time of coronavirus. It argues that the state – mocked as a XIX century artefact – and the nation – repudiated as an identitarian construction in a cosmopolitan world – have lately experienced a strong comeback<\/div>\n

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Tocci, N. (2020) \u2018International Order and the European Project in Times of COVID-19\u2019, 3 March, originally published and available here<\/a><\/h3>\n

\"\"\u00a0COVID19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus that has rapidly turned into a pandemic, could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel\u2019s back. The international liberal order, as well as the European Union within it, has been in trouble for years now. Challenged from the outside by defiantly illiberal powers like China and Russia, as much as from within as Donald Trump disavowed the order that his country had established and sustained, the rules, norms and institutions that have governed international society for over seventy years have languished. The EU, for its part, has been shaken by the successive Eurozone and migration crises, while its surrounding regions were spiralling into conflict and outright collapse. COVID19 could be the final nail in the coffin of a rules-based international order and the European project within it. But it could also give birth to a new phoenix rising from its ashes. Much will depend on how Europe, both internally and internationally, will confront this epochal crisis.<\/p>\n

Nathalie Tocci<\/strong>\u00a0is Director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Honorary Professor at the University of T\u00fcbingen, and member of the GCRF COMPASS Advisory Board. She has been Special Adviser to EU HRVP, on behalf of whom she wrote the\u00a0European Global Strategy<\/a>\u00a0and worked on its implementation, notably in the field of security and defence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer: All critical reflections of the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the political, social, economic, cultural and human aspects of our lives, presented on this page are expressed in a personal capacity only. All COMPASS affiliate members are invited to contribute their reflections.   Chandler, David (2020) \u2018Coronavirus and the end of resilience\u2019, March […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":336,"featured_media":0,"parent":1415,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4745","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/336"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4745"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9621,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4745\/revisions\/9621"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/gcrf-compass\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}