Abstract:Covid-19 has exposed the limitations of current social protection systems and elicited a variety of responses from civil society. This article attempts to characterise emergent agency during Covid-19 by drawing on a dataset of 200 case studies and texts on how human agency has shifted during Covid-19. The overarching finding is that while the pandemic has disrupted civil society, this disruption has also spawned the emergence of new actors, issues, coalitions, and repertoires. Larger patterns in emergent agenc… Show more
“…Klein observes that shocks lose some of their potency through overuse:today, even the cataclysmic shocks of wars and natural disasters do not always provoke the level of disorientation required to impose unwanted economic shock therapy. There are just too many people in the world who have had direct experience with the shock doctrine: they know how it works, …the crucial element of surprise is missing (Klein, 2007, p. 459).The reinvigoration and new configurations of civic activism that our research and others have documented since early 2020 (Nampoothiri & Artuso, 2021; Youngs, 2020) show that the governance shock doctrine of the pandemic era is not hegemonic, and suggest that it may not last long. While the governance shock doctrine made civic space a harder and more dangerous place for activism and the nature of coercive power shifted on the government side, social power also shifted in its basis, manifestations, and possibly its durability.…”
Motivation: Emergencies heighten societies' need to be governed. Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic put systems of public governance under severe pressure across the globe. Civic freedoms were widely curtailed for public health reasons. Scarce resources needed to be allocated swiftly, with little opportunity for debate. Purpose: In settings characterized by authoritarianism, violent conflict, and restricted civic space, relations between governments, civil society, and citizens at best tend to be fragile and fraught even in "normal" times. What happens when these settings are rocked by a profound shock such as the onset of a global pandemic? Methods and approach: This article is based on research on civic space and civic action shortly after the onset of the pandemic in three such settings-Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Civil society advocates in each country tracked and interpreted events in real time, debated their responses, supplemented their own knowledge through key informant interviews, and compared experiences across countries. Findings: I argue that the three governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic constitute a "governance shock doctrine," based on the premise that shocks bring responses from the powerful that advance certain agendas. This patterned phenomenon, visible across the three countries, consists of "securitization" of the public health emergency, suppression of dissent, extension and centralization of executive powers, curtailment of press freedoms, and tightened regulation of civic space, including online space. Civic activism navigated or combated these attacks in various ways. Policy implications: Measures adopted in emergency situations tend to persist, threatening to lock civil society into living with pandemic-era restrictions. Preventing this should be a global priority, and especially important where authoritarianism already looms. An energetic mobilization among national and international actors to reassert and protect civic space is needed if the erosion of civil liberties and normalization of autocratic governance wrought by the political-military apparatus in so many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic is not to become permanent, and if the inspired and progressive innovations in organic civic activism over the 2020-2021 crisis period are to survive and flourish.
“…Klein observes that shocks lose some of their potency through overuse:today, even the cataclysmic shocks of wars and natural disasters do not always provoke the level of disorientation required to impose unwanted economic shock therapy. There are just too many people in the world who have had direct experience with the shock doctrine: they know how it works, …the crucial element of surprise is missing (Klein, 2007, p. 459).The reinvigoration and new configurations of civic activism that our research and others have documented since early 2020 (Nampoothiri & Artuso, 2021; Youngs, 2020) show that the governance shock doctrine of the pandemic era is not hegemonic, and suggest that it may not last long. While the governance shock doctrine made civic space a harder and more dangerous place for activism and the nature of coercive power shifted on the government side, social power also shifted in its basis, manifestations, and possibly its durability.…”
Motivation: Emergencies heighten societies' need to be governed. Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic put systems of public governance under severe pressure across the globe. Civic freedoms were widely curtailed for public health reasons. Scarce resources needed to be allocated swiftly, with little opportunity for debate. Purpose: In settings characterized by authoritarianism, violent conflict, and restricted civic space, relations between governments, civil society, and citizens at best tend to be fragile and fraught even in "normal" times. What happens when these settings are rocked by a profound shock such as the onset of a global pandemic? Methods and approach: This article is based on research on civic space and civic action shortly after the onset of the pandemic in three such settings-Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Civil society advocates in each country tracked and interpreted events in real time, debated their responses, supplemented their own knowledge through key informant interviews, and compared experiences across countries. Findings: I argue that the three governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic constitute a "governance shock doctrine," based on the premise that shocks bring responses from the powerful that advance certain agendas. This patterned phenomenon, visible across the three countries, consists of "securitization" of the public health emergency, suppression of dissent, extension and centralization of executive powers, curtailment of press freedoms, and tightened regulation of civic space, including online space. Civic activism navigated or combated these attacks in various ways. Policy implications: Measures adopted in emergency situations tend to persist, threatening to lock civil society into living with pandemic-era restrictions. Preventing this should be a global priority, and especially important where authoritarianism already looms. An energetic mobilization among national and international actors to reassert and protect civic space is needed if the erosion of civil liberties and normalization of autocratic governance wrought by the political-military apparatus in so many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic is not to become permanent, and if the inspired and progressive innovations in organic civic activism over the 2020-2021 crisis period are to survive and flourish.
“…Innovative civil responses included the distribution of free solar radios in Kenya that allowed children without internet access or electricity at home to continue studying while schools were closed (Rioba, 2020). Digital spaces enabled many movements, organisations and communities to mobilise people, advocate for change, raise resources, brainstorm and strategise, enabling faster and more efficient organising with new opportunities for coalition-building (Nampoothiri and Artuso, 2021). Social media influencers, musicians, poets, painters, social and political activists, and television and sports stars used their talents and social platforms to reach out to millions of people.…”
Section: Expansion and Innovationmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…5 funded the Oxfam research project 'Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid'. The research involved extensive literature review(Nampoothiri and Artuso, 2021), in-country research (the Philippines, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and Nigeria), and nine thematic clusters on social movements, women's organisations, faith organisations, education, HIV/aids, children and youth, livelihoods, informality and the state, and peace building. This chapter describes the patterns of emergent agency identified by these efforts.…”
He is also President-Elect of the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR). He held visiting appointments at HEC Montréal, ESSEC Paris, and Cardiff Business School. His research interests include civil society and social movement organizations, uncivil groups, discourse and narrative analysis.
“…It is a situation unforeseen by contemporary societies, with individual anxieties adding to the challenges facing governments and civil society. Within various sectors, such as the state, private, and non-profit sectors, in Cai et al (2021) and Nampoothiri and Artuso (2021), several initiatives involving civil society are reported with objectives that target the general population, but that particularly impact the most vulnerable sectors of society in health or social terms.…”
The COVID-19 pandemic is producing not only epidemiological consequences on a global scale, but also political, economic, and social repercussions. The health care professionals that have been on the front lines fighting the pandemic need the support and assistance of other organizations to meet the many daily challenges. Volunteer firefighters stand out for their outreach approach and implementation of the Human2Human paradigm that has enabled them to meet the needs of the most vulnerable population that have been hit the hardest by the pandemic. This study adopts an ethnographic-action method considering Portuguese volunteer firefighters to explore the characteristics and relevance of these initiatives in areas such as combating isolation, medical assistance, containing the spread of COVID-19, and promoting public–private partnerships. The findings reveal that factors associated with altruism are central elements in the emergence of these initiatives, although some locally or nationally coordinated initiatives have been replicated in other contexts. It is also noteworthy that volunteer firefighters also present initiatives that can be fit into more than one category.
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