Kushal Pokharel

The COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as an unprecedented crisis in the modern world. Fareed Zakaria, a famous CNN host and political commentator, regards the pandemic as a truly historical event because of its pervasive impact on all humans across the globe. Unlike the previous crises - the 2008 financial crisis or the 9/11 attack whose implications were more regional, the impact of the coronavirus is devastating across time and scale.

Emergence of new variants
Lenin once said: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. The virus has brought the entire world to a standstill in a limited period of time. From politics to economics and society, no sector has been spared. However, the timeline and mode of recovery remains elusive. With new variants of COVID-19 constantly emerging, it is difficult to predict when the world will be absolutely free from this contagion.
In this scenario, the fate of the international world order in the post pandemic period has caught the attention of international development analysts, political commentators, including the global civil society. While the nature of the new world order is difficult to ascertain, intense deliberations and heated discussions on the new world order in the post COVID-19 era are underway. What has been unanimously agreed though is that with the onset of the pandemic, the present liberal world order born out of the legacy of the World War II will wither as there will now be apparently two worlds-- before and after the coronavirus.
Democratic recession beginning from 2006, which was gaining momentum few years before the recent virus outbreak, might have reached a ‘tipping point’, argues Francis Fukuyama, a world renowned American political scientist. Diminishing institutional checks, political opposition, independent media, and other forces of scrutiny and resistance in civil society have remained the hallmark of the democratic recession. Surpassing the pace of the third wave of democratisation beginning in the 1970’s, countries of Asia and Latin America in particular have witnessed a sharp degradation in the quality of democracies. In a research article published in the Journal of Democracy, Larry Diamond, a prominent sociologist, hints at the alarming level of declining average freedom globally with the accelerating pace of democratic breakdown and declining number of democratic transitions.
COVID-19 policy responses clearly show rising authoritarianism and expansionist tendencies in a world characterised by rising populism, ethnic nationalism and xenophobia. In a bid to expand their grip over governance, world leaders have passed emergency decrees and legislation. Be it Viktor Orban in Hungary or Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, the intention of the power grab has been clear.
Another issue that will come handy in determining the new world order is the management of the crisis of multilateralism. The failure of multilateral institutions like the World Health Organisation (WHO) to effectively respond to the crises in post-virus period has created huge suspicion over the relevance of such institutional arrangements for global prosperity. Moreover, the inadvertent crises of globalisation with the closing of borders and restricted movements of goods and services call for devising a new model of globalisation that can accommodate the new concerns of the nations for better integration to combat the COVID-19 crisis.
How the US-China rivalry unfolds will also be crucial in determining the fate of the new world order. Based on the current state of conflict between these two economic giants, things are not looking good for global governance and politics. Posing a direct threat to the liberal world order, China has been aggressively pursuing its expansionist policies to strengthen its geo-political clout. While China’s ambitions were already rising before the pandemic, the global public health crisis might become a tipping point for realising its desire to become a world superpower. It will be too early to precisely predict the type of balance of power to be seen in the post COVID-19. Moreover, the role of emerging powers like India can also have implications.

Growing inequality
On the economic front, the growing inequality is a matter of serious concern. With the WB and IMF reporting that more than 150 billion people have been pushed back to poverty with the emergence of the pandemic, the gravity of the situation can be assessed. Rising digital economy has further entrenched a sharp divide among blue-collar and white -collar jobs all implicating the future of the new world. Massive job cuts in the informal sector, reduction of incentives in various sectors of employment among others are some other pressing challenges that have a direct bearing on international development and politics.
Although it will be too early to predict the new world in the post pandemic era, a right mix of democracy, economic prosperity and sovereignty will be instrumental in determining the new balance of power.

(The author is an independent researcher and faculty of social science and research. kushalpokharel03@gmail.com)