In spring 2020, Europe was struck by a virus. COVID-19 has paralyzed the European Union and the political turning point of the COVID-19 crisis will drag on Europe—on the EU—for a long time to come. The EU displayed a bad picture, at least in the
Lauri Rapeli and Inga Saikkonen
Introduction Democracy, understood as electoral democracy based on representation, was not at its strongest when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The Freedom House organization, which has monitored global democracy for decades, reported in 2020 that
Marcos S. Scauso, Garrett FitzGerald, Arlene B. Tickner, Navnita Chadha Behera, Chengxin Pan, Chih-yu Shih, and Kosuke Shimizu
As the specter of COVID-19 haunts the world, another specter—that of colonialism—has made a spectacular (re)appearance. Colonial continuities, as evidenced in myriad forms of inequality, discrimination, and violence, are prevalent throughout the
Jodi Dean
demonstrations of the COVID-19 era. Right-wing protesters had already staged multiple gatherings contesting stay-at-home orders. Television news featured middle-aged white people complaining about needing to get haircuts and violations of their rights. On April
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe
The Rise of Autocracy and Democratic Resilience
Petra Guasti
( Urbinati 2014 ). The COVID-19 pandemic represents a new and unparalleled stress-test for the already disrupted liberal-representative democracies. The challenges to such contemporary democracies cluster around the three democratic disfigurations (and
Shobita Parthasarathy
For decades, governments across the world have tended to ignore, and sometimes even punish, poor and marginalized communities. Public policies have attended instead to the needs of our societies’ most privileged members. The COVID-19 pandemic has
Marla Frederick, Yunus Doğan Telliel, and Heather Mellquist Lehto
COVID-19, Religious Markets, and the Black Church Marla Frederick My Facebook timeline lit up in early April. The picture kept appearing in post after post from close friends and respected colleagues. Regardless of whose timeline it came
Girls, Homelessness, and COVID-19
The Urgent Need for Research and Action
Kaitlin Schwan, Erin Dej, and Alicia Versteegh
Introduction Despite the profoundly divergent impacts of COVID-19 globally, it appears that diverse policy makers, scholars, and community leaders can agree on one thing—the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing inequities. This has
Tourism and COVID-19
Intimacy Transformed or Intimacy Interrupted?
Hazel Andrews
touristic practices. It examines the importance of intimacy to constructions of tourism experiences and reflects on how the COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020 has the potential to transform those experiences. I begin by briefly exploring the complexity of what
Zooming in on COVID
The Intimacies of Screens, Homes and Learning Hierarchies
Adam Roth, Niroshnee Ranjan, Grace King, Shamim Homayun, Rebecca Hendershott, and Simone Dennis
visited upon us by COVID-19. Zooming Tastefully and Touchingly Online teaching and learning is certainly different from face-to-face teaching and learning in multiple ways, but often their difference is conceptualised in terms of the absence of full