The global public health pandemic of lethal COVID-19 became a major challenge in the global landscape since the beginning of 2020. Its concomitant apprehension of the fatality of the disease created a sense of anxiety, fear, paranoia, and human insecurity across the world. Health experts said that like any public policy challenge, a global public health crisis of this magnitude is not new. However, this novel corona virus casualty perpetuated a gap in callousness and response towards the gross neglect of the health system in a politicking society. It is an inevitable moral or ethical turpitude to eschew further consolidation of ignorance of the health system and exclusion of social insecurity and those still left outside social safety nets at the national and global levels. This novel pandemic has wider consequences in its aftermath in international politics wherein glocal citizens and common human beings will perceive and experience the brunt of repercussion in economic well-being and uneasiness in social capital (given social distancing and income loss).
The recession that started in 2007-08 is going to overstretch for another decade or so and sustainable development goals are impacted to achieve in full and total concert and wherewithal. Because the government focuses on grappling and containing this unforeseen health issue and challenge that originated outside its border or frontier. In the case of Nepal, a vulnerability in terms of inadequate resources and means in this battle when its immediate neighbors India and China where virus fatalities and vicinity endanger Nepal the most. Nepal’s fragility is unspeakable on the condition of vast migrant laborers and students abroad when liability is high for the government to bear the burden of assuaging their concerns when the host government shows contempt for their economic and financial support.
The core politics of international relations seems to be wary while its responsiveness in tackling pandemic by witnessing the enforcement of lockdown and quarantine looks like a sci-fi cinema. And what could be a hapless situation when public procurement of protective health equipment and safety gear mires in corruption. Amid pandemic buzz and talks, the business of rights and wrongs in international politics is a natural outcome of exchanges or transactional affairs. The emotive issue of saving human lives and taking precautionary health safeguards has gotten prime importance.
In the meantime, some statesmen who were skeptics of the corona pandemic in North America and Latin America were poised to say confidently that their country is open for business. Americas and Europe suffered in terms of mortality rate due to the corona virus compared to the early recovery from the pandemic in Communist China. There were criticisms and counter-arguments based on the conspiracy theories of the origin of this deadly virus. Even in Nepal finger-pointing has been done about biological weapon warfare rumors spread by a few politicians.
To the south of Nepal, India a developing country was unafraid to say that its large economy would see the setbacks to economic development behind 21 years in the schedule if adequate control measures were not taken immediately. The Government of India expected to neutralize its concomitant economic maladies unless every Indian supported to wage war against this virus power by staying safe at home in its wider mediatized campaign.
But situations did not discourage the migrant workers in India to go back home and remittance dependent countries like Nepal had much pangs of urgency to ascertain the impact and effects to its laborers in the Gulf countries. In Nepal, foreign missions evacuated their citizens, who were on the tourist purpose, by chartered flights out of the country. The country has suspended its much-touted Visit Nepal Year 2020 campaign which is going to hurt its tourism industry for a year or two, or when travel and tourism business gets normal because of this unprecedented health concern.
Thus, in the aftermath of this pandemic, political-economic calculation estimates to be costly and dear to all countries – rich or poor and large or small. A hunch in the political economy says that if the economy is healthy before this onset then it would recover quickly or bounce back to normal. But when the economic situation itself was neither conducive to a tall mission of prosperity then what can we expect from a political economy that is based only on economic growth and not on sustainable human and social capital.
Emotions versus rationalist posture at overarching levels of analysis in international politics have been unheard of in international relations theory debate. This discourse is as old as a discipline of politics and international relations since its inception but it encompasses all the previous four debates in paradigm. I am referring to this because ultimately it is the question of emotions and reasons that figures out in our immediate human conduct. The enigma of the fallout of war or peace, conflict, or cooperation depends much on this plane of mindscape at the least or in brief.
How vulnerable the human mind and fragile our human society has been posed by this global pandemic which bespeaks the human’s public health issues. It provides us the impetus to the government and future statesmen to take precautions in public administration in such outbreaks and be alert on global public health challenges in any country in any corner of the world. So that astute emotional management, rational response, and scientific measures are undertaken minimizing collateral damage to national and global society. A better angel of our nature would counsel the best policy options and responses. It touched on the sensitive global warming and climate change imperatives too. Therefore, it has redefined the additional responsibility to political and civil society in an interdependent and interconnected planetary system.
However, on the world media reportage of political riots and egregious household violence in lockdown support the evidence of a boiling point on the unbearable fault-lines developing in the capitalizing society and an apathetic, numb, and naiveté political status quo in the political world of democracy. On the other hand, the oppositional political system is under duress at the precipice of anarchy or saving itself further from the systemic legitimacy crises in political society around the world. Contemporary politics is not sanguine especially in democratic and opening up societies, leave alone authoritarian regimes.
Political populism gaining ascendancy is a dangerous precedent in political history, and it is not a good omen when political-economic stress and strain is causing dissents and disenchantment among particularly youth who are feeling too disconnected to political participation or delaying to democratizing democracy. The desires seem to be deep democracy in such societies. Stoic wisdom could play things out to concede human nature and democratize the state of nature in the grammar of politics I believe at this hour of novice understanding of the world or earthly affairs.
A palliative measure in global public policy is welcoming to the extent that global public health does not become intractable to respond to this crisis. Before this pandemic, global financial and economic health was also found not to be robust. Although politicians in the developed and developing world were trying to grapple and address those concerns, bonafide citizens were not quite hopeful to a feigning delivery of rhetoric. Now the time on the political page is convivial to restart where politics has to renew to serve the needs and conscience of national and international society. Its beneficiaries and stakeholders would complement liberal peace (free-market economics and democracies) and democratic peace (democratic countries remain aligned peacefully and do not wage war against each other). Furthermore, ethics in international politics would salvage the global society from the ruinous nature of this disease so that we interweave pieces of politics to a better progressive society.
The best hope for the future is to realize and concretize the stakes in democratic power politics to resolve the pending and current state of affairs. Without mitigating the reservoir of old issues, political focus digresses from the intermittent violent opposition it insinuates. Otherwise, the great issues in domestic politics are callous to it, and international politics centers again on great power competition.1
Small states like Nepal have to avoid remaining in disarray in the art and science of government and governance while geopolitics and geo-economics put burdens it can neither bear nor handle better.2 Julia Strasheim says the argument that pandemic will take advantage of China in favor of global order can be refuted from the case of dynamics in Nepal. It is a hyperbole analysis when Nepal never wields proportionate influence in global geopolitics.3 At this hour getting technical and financial assistance by such countries can relieve the onus of the government from searching means and resources at disposal to prevent and remedy the further woes in their polity, economy, and society. A word craftsperson coined “health diplomacy” in international aid in this grave situation to assist those countries in dire needs. Nepal was not an exception to it.
The agony of unethical deeds such as corruption in the health sector, administrative apathy to public affairs, and reliance upon the meekness of the public will not help the country out of this quagmire of the pandemic. In the meantime, racial abuse or violence based on caste hints, not much change will happen in our stereotypes. While the world affairs will return to the status quo ante situation. The border issues and flashpoints about territorial irredentism in the context of India and China in Ladakh, Sikkim, and North Eastern Frontiers of India and the disputed Kalapani area of Nepal with India had flared up during this crisis.
The business of politics will never be the same but neither good nor better in the days to come. Interests drive the power politics and ideologies are on the backburner. The high and dry spell of political climate around the world is challenged on the street riots and crowd power. The state and society are on the verge of pessimism everywhere. The highly critical thinking and opinionated loquacious culture are growing and some even balk at translating rhetoric into reality.
The closing of the gap between ideals and reality is an action that is missing these days. Critical action and critical praxis can be the best hope to save the generation from the age of rage to the age of ease. Otherwise, it can only be a figment of fantasy. Redefining our happiness barometer is effacing the erstwhile soft power in international profile. There are genuine concerns that leisure and cheerfulness would never find a similar level of comfort and acceptance in a capitalizing world of ours. The world of ease of doing business is being distracted before due to internal and external problems, and this pandemic is going to accentuate those symptoms further.
Power politics at the international level is going to be severe with conservative groups’ intolerance to the globalization process and xenophobic syndromes on the rise. The US did not handle satisfactorily and it would dissuade the foreign publics to view America as charitable and powerful. The international economic exchange barrier will be higher in five years given the nationalizing supply chains and decoupling China from the US. A bevy of 21st-century challenges like the COVID pandemic, the 2008 financial crisis, and global warming had somewhat satisfactory international cooperation. This pandemic would not fundamentally alter the distribution of power in world politics. The world will become more protectionists.4 However, some level of the mutual understanding of humanitarian values would surprisingly increase but either of envious or of competitiveness of human traits.
A conjecture from Nepal from a current perspective tells that the diktats of time and circumstances are not going to be in our favor. To overturn this milieu, we again have to focus on normalizing government and governance or restart a new chapter in political affairs to improve or reform the state of affairs. It cannot function or work as usual anymore too. With this final note, the crisis comes and goes, and this shall be forgotten and we enter into a new kaleidoscope of current history.5 But it would change us to remain what we were and not what we ought to be giving a satire to our human nature.
Notes and References
1. Read about three images of international relations – the structural properties of the international system from the top-down perspectives, attributes of the state system (responses of authoritarian regimes/democratic or federal/unitary) to the roles of individuals in leadership. It analyzes COVID 19 challenge and review of such public health threats from systemic analysis, a terse mention of game theory and financial and technical asymmetry in the world of states. All three images explain and make us understand that cooperation, not anarchy can help us out in curbing this virus to spread further. Busby, Joshua. (2020, April 26). What international relations tells us about COVID 19. Retrieved from https://www.e-ir.info/2020/04/26/what-international-relations-tells-us-about-covid-19/
2. Read a similar conjecture on post-pandemic geopolitics. Mohan, Deepanshu. (2020, May 2). The geopolitical contours of a post-COVID-19 world. Retrieved from https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2020/05/02/the-geopolitical-contours-of-a-post-covid-19-world/
3. Strasheim, Julia. (2020, April 15). GP Opinion-Global governance-Will COVID-19 reshape global order? Nepal Shows: Not So Fast.
4. Drezner, Daniel W. (2020, May 11). (Post Everything|Perspective) So what do international relations scholars think about COVID-19 and world politics? Some interesting results from the latest TRIP survey. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/05/11/so-what-do-international-relations-scholars-think-about-covid-19-world-politics/
5. See Harari, Yuval, Shafak, Elif, Moyo, Dambisa, Schmidt, Eric, & Others. (2020, June 8). How COVID Will Change Us: Insights from around the world. Noēma. Retrieved from https://www.noemamag.com/yuval-harari-elif-shafak-dambisa-moyo-eric-schmidt-how-covid-will change-us/
