Pandemic, Democracy, and Freedom

Democracy in Times of Pandemic

Ethics & Bioethics

This article examines the impact of a pandemic on democratic societies. The central research question is the extent to which a pandemic can alter the trajectory of social and ethical democratic development nationally and internationally. Therefore, the article examines contemporary controversies in democratic society in the aftermath of a pandemic. The leading hypothesis is that the pandemic should reinforce the need for social solidarity, but it is unclear what political form this need will take: populism or deliberative/nonconsensual democracy.

2021

The pandemic caused by the rapid spread of the Covid-19 virus has revealed impacts well beyond those linked to health. Indeed, it has established itself as what Mauss called a "total social fact", that is, an event that affects every single aspect of society. In this editorial we present some initial reflections on the myriad ways in which the pandemic will affect the State and the relationship between States and citizens as played out in spheres of everyday life. We begin with a brief historical overview of pandemics and the patterns, contradictions and lessons they have left, before looking at the crisis context in which the current pandemic is unfolding. We then take a look at the myriad ways in which the pandemic underlines, emphasises and exacerbates a fundamental rift in the relationship between states and citizens by discussing risk, expertise, communication, de- and re-politicisation and more. We conclude by asking ourselves if - beyond the liberal democracy vs aut...

As countries around the world went into lockdown, we turned to 32 leading scholars working on different aspects of democracy and asked them what they think about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted democracy. In this article, we synthesize the reflections of these scholars and present five key insights about the prospects and challenges of enacting democracy both during and after the pandemic: (1) COVID-19 has had corrosive effects on already endangered democratic institutions, (2) COVID-19 has revealed alternative possibilities for democratic politics in the state of emergency, (3) COVID-19 has amplified the inequalities and injustices within democracies, (4) COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for institutional infrastructure for prolonged solidarity, and (5) COVID-19 has highlighted the predominance of the nation-state and its limitations. Collectively, these insights open up important normative and practical questions about what democracy should look like in the face of an emergency and what we might expect it to achieve under such circumstances.

Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, 2020

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how a systemic view of democracy can provide insights into the myriad ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic affects democracies worldwide. This enables the authors to offer practical suggestions for strengthening democracy through meaningful participation in the spaces where deficits are most apparent. Design/methodology/approach The authors use the systems approach that has emerged from the deliberative and participatory democracy literature in recent years to map out the impacts of COVID-19. In this paper, the authors set out this approach as an agenda for future, more comprehensive research. Findings The authors’ preliminary overview suggests that democratic spaces are reconfigured during COVID-19, with participatory spaces shrinking, overlapping and invading each other. Based on the systemic overview, the authors suggest participatory interventions to address particular points of weakness such as accountability. Originality/value...

GAPAC Papers, 2020

Considering the current pandemic as an expression of the environmental variable, it seems that we are now barely short of the military to complete the picture of a globalized crisis that is taking down on regimes and societies across the orb. Contagion and despotism reinforce each other, based on manipulation, fear and uncertainty

A Political Economy of Pandemics and Consequences of COVID-19 for Nigeria, 2021

The chapter explores the nexus between the erosion of democratic values such as freedom, excessive accretion of powers to the executive and respect for civil liberty and credible and regular elections and the management of pandemic. It shows that the disruptive impact of a pandemic, not just on the lives and livelihoods of millions of people as well as the functioning of institutions and systems of countries is real. The chapter particularly shows that conditions thrown up by COVID-19 appear to have favoured the executive in terms of control and exercise of power at the expense of other institutions such as the legislature and civil society across democracies and in Nigeria in particular. The chapter also demonstrates that despite the constraints, the legislature and civil society have engaged the situation to limit executive control and excesses which provide clear lessons given the understanding that pandemics are permanent features of human existence and occur with some sense of regularity. Two important lessons that the chapter draws out relates to how to deal with the question of cushioning the effects of a pandemic on citizens in the form of palliatives and the administration of such palliatives and addressing issues of social inclusion including the rights of the vulnerable population. The authors underscore the need to institute safeguards during emergency situations to ensuring continuity of democratic governance, confidence in institutions responsible democratic leadership and responsible citizenry. They also call attention to the need for governments not only to remain transparent and accountable during pandemics but to maintain the principle of checks and balances especially in the application of emergency powers. Extraordinary measures, for instance, should be crafted to ensuring that they are limited and subjected to parliamentary scrutiny and the intervention of the courts and that “sunset clauses” are needed to ensuring that emergency measures are only for a limited duration and should, as much as possible, not alter the fundamentals underlying democratic governance. Furthermore, the government should make efforts to mitigate the impact of the lockdown through the provision of cash and the distribution of food to vulnerable households.

Acta Academica, 2021

The outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020 and the various measures taken subsequently, either by individual countries or by government and nongovernment bodies with a global reach, have had a profound effect on human lives on a number of levels, be it social, economic, legal, or political. The scramble to respond to the threat posed by the rapid spread of the virus has, in many cases, led to a suspension of ordinary politics whilst at the same time throwing into sharp relief the profoundly political nature of the pandemic. In addition to the new issues that have arisen regarding detection and treatment of the COVID-19 virus, perennial political issues regarding the limits of political authority, racial and gender justice, and populism and demagoguery have thrust themselves to the forefront of mainstream political discourse. This special issue, titled simply Pandemic politics, is a collection of papers that casts a critical perspective upon the political dimensions of the current pandemic. We have invited papers covering a broad spectrum of pandemic-related topics, especially with the focus on aspects of the pandemic in relation to the Southern hemisphere. The eight papers that made it to this volume are reflective of this broad approach and fall, roughly, into three categories, namely power and mistrust, disaster capitalism, and COVID-19: crisis or opportunity.

2020

Democratic Theory, 2020

As countries around the world went into lockdown, we turned to 32 leading scholars working on different aspects of democracy and asked them what they think about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted democracy. In this article, we synthesize the reflections of these scholars and present five key insights about the prospects and challenges of enacting democracy both during and after the pandemic: (1) COVID-19 has had corrosive effects on already endangered democratic institutions, (2) COVID-19 has revealed alternative possibilities for democratic politics in the state of emergency, (3) COVID-19 has amplified the inequalities and injustices within democracies, (4) COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for institutional infrastructure for prolonged solidarity, and (5) COVID-19 has highlighted the predominance of the nation-state and its limitations. Collectively, these insights open up important normative and practical questions about what democracy should look like in the face of an emergency and what we might expect it to achieve under such circumstances.