19 April 2020, NIICE Commentary 4158
Dr. Rajeesh C Sarngadharan & Naseer Ahmad Bhat
COVID-19 has taken over the world by surprise and it is redefining the geo-politics and the contours of political, security, health and economic spheres. There are restrictions that have come up between the nation-states but the health dynamics demands new coalitions, global cooperation and co-optations. The interpretation of Globalization that, “it is winding up” has again sought the new takers who believed in the permanency of it. This is more vivid when the word ‘Globalisation’ is studied in the contemporary context of COVID-19. Humankind has upheld globalisation as a process which accentuates the pace of free movement of people, ideas and technology. But today everyone prefers to be de-globalized through the processes of self-isolation, quarantining and social distancing pushing the critics of ‘Globalization’, ‘Hybridization’ and ‘McDonaldization’ wins the momentum. Adam Geczy has pointed out that globalisation generates the ‘globus’ or globe, a region of in and out: those who have the privilege to inhabit and those outside. Globalisation is not about the distribution of capital but the opposite – its containment.
This is the phase of Globalization that the world was not used to. The nationalist, populists and chauvinists who believed in sealing the borders in order to restrict the trade, now have an additional reason. The outbreak of COVID-19 has emboldened the populists, protectionists and nationalists who believed in building ‘the walls’ on borders, Britons who were forsaking the European Union and the Right-wing European parliamentarians who sought to whip up nationalistic frenzy in order to garner the support against the immigrants. The COVID-19 pandemic has turned out to be blessing in disguise for such actors. The epidemic has led to a natural barrier on communication and free movement of goods and services. The initial movement and the analysis was that the virus will be Wuhan-centric and China will deal with the infection locally. As the impact broadened and rippled exponentially, the virus has provided the succour and fodder for protectionists to drum beat their already hyped rhetoric. The US-China trade war that was already at a historic high has got a boost due to the Coronavirus and its global impact. Many senior Republicans have labelled the virus as the ‘New Tiananmen Square’, ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Wuhan virus’. The US government faced a back lash over the remarks but it is what suits the populists. The COVID-19 has put various regimes to the test, be it authoritarian, democratic-liberal or monarchies.
The COVID-19 has highlighted that authoritarian regimes are vulnerable to pandemics, diseases and disasters, for instance China and Iran. Both countries are bracing huge and humongous levels of exposure to the COVID-19 outbreak. China has initially contained the information about the outbreak but lately, it has realised the importance of transparency and accountability. Another factor is that China until now is the only country that has dealt with the outbreak very efficiently. China’s authoritarianism seems to be working well in containing the pandemic. Currently, China is exporting the ‘best-practices’ to other countries around the world. The Global orthodox theories that academics revered have been subjected to a huge blow and are seeing a churn. The world is bracing and embracing new rules of de-globalization and is envisioning a better future for authoritarianism-as it worked well in China dealing with the pandemic.
The challenge that the ‘liberal’ US has faced with is much more different. The fact that the US President Donald J. Trump bungled in the COVID-19 crises, had to put off a last-minute deal when he declared National Emergency, shows that Globalization impacts local politics. Crisis control demands that the system works authoritatively and this is where China proved a better player than a liberal America, although populism was in favour of latter.
As Michelle Goldberg puts it, “Donald Trump’s response to the Coronavirus combines the worst features of Autocracy and Democracy, mixing opacity and propaganda with leaderless efficiency”. During 1990’s, the theorists and proponents of Globalization believed that world is getting more interconnected through economies, trade and hence, citizens will witness a borderless world, or for that matter unimportant borders. This trend got reversed in the last decade due to rise of nationalists and ‘nation-first’ demagogues . The pandemic of COVID-19 is reinforcing its point of view and the trend towards de-globalisation is on. This de-globalisation shall not be absolute unwinding of the globalisation process, but shall come with riders that will be decided by local politics and ideologies of nationalism.
The global economy, because of COVID-19, has tanked to historical lows. After a few days of the proliferation of the virus, the busy streets of Wuhan were deserted. The health sector of all the countries are definitely under tremendous pressure but more worryingly, it is threatening the world economy into recession. The US Federal Reserve has gone for an emergency rate-cut of a half percentage point which the biggest since 2008 financial crises. But the step seems more like a knee-jerk reaction made out of compulsion, rather than a mature policy decision. As COVID-19 is impacting the global supply chains and more importantly, the global health infrastructure is under tremendous pressure because of lack of supply of essential equipment’s and lifesaving logistics, a looming negativity exists around the question of the interconnectedness of the world.
Consumerism is hit head-on. The consumer preferences have changed from bung luxury items to healthcare essentials like N95 masks, sanitizers, toilet papers and tissues. Fortune has labelled this with a tantrum that masks “have become symbols of protection”. A Swedish based company that manufactured breathing masks known as ‘Airinum’ has run out of stock. The purchasing of masks has replaced general consumers preferences . The buying preferences and determinants depend upon the psychology of human beings too. According to a study by Sulzhan Bali, the fear factor that comes with the outbreak of pandemics will have a lasting impact on consumer preferences. This factor is termed as “Fearonomic”. His study shows the impact of Ebola outbreak on the economy of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, in the sectors like health, hospitality and aviation, and he argues that no “business was immune to Ebola’s fearonomic effects”. Even after recovering from the Ebola impact, the economy of those African Countries still suffers from economic and consumerism slowdown. This apprehension is shared among the researchers regarding COVID-19 today.
Hence, Globalization is under a lot of strain and testing as well. As big cartels hoard up the supplies, Chinese manufacturing is breaking down and Europe is sighing for some respite, COVID-19 is reshaping the essentials and principles of Globalization. The very foundations and theories of socio-political setups are in serious overhaul. COVID-19 has given populists and nationalists a canon to fire but the fears and apprehensions about the pandemic nature the virus have compelled them to work in tandem and in close association with sects of opposite ideology. The gist of the crisis is that Globalization is not winding but it is very much in a fragile and tenuous situation. The pandemic has come as a good breeze for corporates dealing with medicinal essentials but the virus has impacted the bustling consumerism. The flexibility and interconnectedness of Globalization ensured that the best practices reach every possible nook and corner of the world but it has also made world vulnerable to the vagaries of biological warfare and economic fragilities—with one country failing, it brings ripples all over the world, simple because that the world today is greatly akin to a tangled web of polities, economies and cultures.
