The Pandemic and the Transformation of Liberal International Order

Abstract

In 2018, 43 leading International Relations scholars in the United States signed a public statement in support of an urgent call to preserve the current international order, triggering heated scholarly debates. The idealized form of the liberal international order was criticized by many scholars for its chronic problems, including the contradictions between proclaimed liberal values and illiberal behaviors, the inability to reform its institutional pillars to accommodate the diverse group of emerging powers, and the tensions between the defenders of this order and its challengers. These problems became fully exposed under the external shock caused by the coronavirus pandemic. As the coronavirus spreads globally and disrupts the world's political, economic, and social fabric, several forces that have gained momentum and strength during the last decade are now converging as a formidable force that may reconfigure the postpandemic international order. This paper addresses three significant challenges to the foundations of the current liberal order: (1) the entrenchment of authoritarianism, characterized by authoritarian resilience, autocratization, and the consolidation of competing authoritarian political-economic models; (2) the exacerbation of nationalism enabled by nationalist and populist politicians; and (3) the intensified competition among major powers. China has played mixed roles in the process of reconfiguring the current order. It challenges the mythologized liberal international order and exposes the contradictions in the dominant Western model, while promoting an alternative hybrid political-economic model. The shock brought by the pandemic has provided ample opportunities for China to extend its networks and expand international space for its model.

The Struggle for Certainty: Ontological Security, the Rise of Nationalism, and Australia-China Tensions after COVID-19

“…All of this suggests that Australia's identity is mainly supported by multilateralist institutions and the US-led regional security system. The greater uncertainty brought about by the pandemic that may undermine such institutional infrastructures frustrates Australia's ontological security and provokes the country to take action to reduce any risks and uncertainties in the "new order" [34].…”

Magnitude and Determinants of Mortalities Related to COVID-19: Evidence from 94 Countries Using Regression Techniques

“…There has been a sudden spurt of academic studies cutting across various domains of knowledge on the factors contributing to the increase of COVID-19 pandemic cases, transmissions and deaths. These studies mainly focus on the following: spatial effects of COVID-19 (Guliyev 2020); effects on temperature and humidity variations in the number of COVID-19 deaths (Ma et al 2020;Wu et al 2020;Qi et al 2020); environmental impacts on COVID-19 transmission (Xu et al 2020); air pollution and COVID-19 infection (Yongjian et al 2020;Bontempi 2020); maternal deaths due to COVID-19 (Hantoushzadeh et al 2020); association between the COVID-19 cases and deaths (Sarkodie and Owusu 2020); COVID-19 and stock market volatility (Sreenu and Pradhan 2022); COVID-19 and microfinance institutions (Sangwan et al 2021); social distancing and COVID-19 death (Conyon et al 2020); labour mobility and fatality due to COVID-19 (Wright et al 2020); nationalism and COVID-19 (Wang 2021;Gülseven 2021;Zhao 2021;Pan and Korolev 2021;Lin 2021;Givens and Mistur 2021;Yang and Chen 2021;Zhao 2021;Boylan et al 2021;Albertoni and Wise 2021;He and Chen 2021); global politics and COVID-19 (Salvati 2021;Makarychev and Romashko 2021;Chen 2021; Wang and Sun 2021;Lin 2021;Huang 2021;Chang 2021;Jaworsky and Qiaoan 2021;Caballero-Anthony and Gong 2021); mitigating measures against COVID-19 (Zhang et al 2021;Ullah et al 2021).…”

Media framing and expression of anti-China sentiment in COVID-19-related news discourse: An analysis using deep learning methods

“…In these terms, the COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented global issue in terms of not only the epidemiology of the disease but also the debates that have arisen since its emergence, which encompass a wide scope of concerns. Since the disease has had a truly international characteristic, the ‘narrative battle’ debate on the attribution of responsibility and the resultant transformation of the international order has gained considerable attention ( Fox, 2021 ; Huang, 2021 ; Jaworsky and Qiaoan, 2021 ). Especially due to territorial disputes, national anxiety, and historical frictions, xenophobia toward China has been represented as a long-term issue in East Asian countries, including Japan and Korea.…”