is suspended with EU member states re-establishing national border controls. States, more generally, have defaulted to prioritizing bringing citizens who are transient absentees back “home.” The response to COVID-19 has seen a governmental re
Ulrike Guérot and Michael Hunklinger
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
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
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
Democracy in a Global Emergency
Five Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
Afsoun Afsahi, Emily Beausoleil, Rikki Dean, Selen A. Ercan, and Jean-Paul Gagnon
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge for contemporary democracies around the globe. It has led to the closure and transformation of parliaments and enabled governments to rule by decree. It has curtailed citizens’ fundamental
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
Babies and Boomers
Intergenerational Democracy and the Political Epidemiology of COVID-19
Toby Rollo
perennial sacrificial lambs of public health policy, and we see this reiterated in the political epidemiology of COVID-19. Responses to past pandemics such as polio and Spanish Flu—like liberal responses to poverty, pollution, and war—reflect a set of public
Latin America and COVID-19
Political Rights and Presidential Leadership to the Test
Brigitte Weiffen
The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Latin America at a moment when democracy was already sailing in treacherous waters. According to the Varieties of Democracy data, the region's democracies have seen an erosion of political liberties, the protection
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
COVID and the Era of Emergencies
What Type of Freedom is at Stake?
Danielle Celermajer and Dalia Nassar
debate over the political response to COVID-19 concerns the stakes of how we navigate the conflict between, on the one hand, the need to act decisively in the face of the threat that the virus poses to life (and other rights, such as health), and, on the