Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19

Abstract

In the lead article of this symposium, Florian Bieber predicted that the Covid-19 pandemic would have limited long-term effects on the global rise in the level of nationalism because most governments were likely to revert to their prior nationalist trajectories following the pandemic. Nonetheless, I argue that we can learn something about the role of nationalism in the management of public health crises by looking at the variable state responses to the arrival of the virus within their borders. In the modern international system, state governments are tasked with safeguarding the health and well-being of their national populations. During national emergencies, sovereigntist movements form around competing images of the nation that deserves protection. This article uses political artwork to show how different images of the idealized sovereign community were employed to justify divergent pandemic policies of US President Donald Trump and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Over the course of the pandemic, both leaders came under fire for failing to protect their constituents, providing space for alternative leaders and models of national protection.

45 Years Higher Education in the Area of Security – Educational Challenges and Security Perspectives

“…In Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19, following Dyer and Safi, Jenne puts focus on the ethnopopulists effects of covid pandemics arguing that during national emergencies or crises such as pandemics, sovereigntist movements form around collective images of the idealized sovereign people, whose interests must be defended and voices represented (Jenne, 2022, p.28) 39 ; Again, she recalls on both mentioned authors and writes that pandemics have also produced exclusionary ethnonationalism, generating nativist, medicalized prejudice that justified restrictions on immigrants, who were seen as carriers of disease and Covid-19 was configured as a foreign threat, even in countries that were already experiencing widespread community transmission. As vaccines came online in early 2021, there was a rise of "vaccine nationalism" and governments competed against one another to be the first to develop a vaccine that could protect their nation, even poaching one another's scientific teams (Dyer, 2020, p.29) 40 .…”

“…(Jenne, 2022, p.34) 43 Jenne states that the presidency of Donald Trump offers a textbook example of ethnopopulism during the coronavirus pandemic. The former president pointedly and continually referred to Covid-19 as the "China virus," while simultaneously minimizing the risk and harms of the virus and hawking folk coronavirus remedies over the advice of his top scientists and his own Centers for Disease Control; Brazilian president Bolsonaro offers a second example; A third ethnopopulists response can be found in India, where sectarian tensions were already on the rise, due in part to the actions of the populist nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government, which introduced a discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019 (Jenne, 2022 representation theory. According to her, the emergence of new social representations always coincides with the emergence of a new situation that has no precedent, and that is an unknown phenomenon or unusual event.…”

“…Hence, nationalist governments are more likely to adopt policies that tilt the playing field toward members of the national in-group- 30 Hence, Jenne states that this notion of hers stands against Madrid's one (2008), who uses ethnopopulism to refer to inclusive party organizations in Latin America that embrace numerous ethnic groups under a common multiethnic identity (Jenne, 2018, p.550) 31 In other words, ethnopopulism is a combination of ethnonationalism and populism, or, a stance where nationalist politicians use symbols to mobilize the population against perceived foreign or domestic threats related to the ethnos, according to Jenne (Jenne, 2018). Even more, she, in Varieties of Nationalism in the Age of Covid-19 (Jenne, 2022), discusses Vachudova's (2020) 36 description as if ethnopopulism is an "elite strategy for winning votes and concentrating power" and consequently states this calls attention to the ways in which embattled leaders employ hyper-exclusionary rhetoric to remain in power within stillcompetitive electoral systems. At the rhetorical level, she reminds us, ethnopopulists reconfigure the idealized sovereign community so restrictively that large swaths of the population are deliberately left out of its imagined boundaries-implying that they are to be excluded from the full protections of the state.…”