The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to life the worst dreams — or nightmares — of Foucauldian biopolitics, encapsulating the very meaning of politics as the protection of collective life.
The pandemic has demonstrated the need for public leadership in order to encourage people to practice safe interactions, including social distancing and seeking vaccination. Many authoritarian states interpreted public leadership as the ability to control people’s behavior and, accordingly, claimed to be more successful than their democratic counterparts in managing the pandemic.
COVID-19 has posed an enormous challenge to political systems’ ability to cope with the human and economic disruption caused by the virus. Given its global scale, the pandemic spurred international cooperation in some instances, such as with the G20 and the WHO-driven Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator. However, it also generated competitive dynamics in the international arena, notably between democracies and autocracies.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many highlighted the link between authoritarian regimes and effectiveness in managing the pandemic. However, when it comes to Africa, the link between the quality of the response and regime type is not a direct correlation. In fact, the efficiency of a country’s pandemic management primarily depended on national trajectories in most cases.
The COVID-19 pandemic, aside from being a health disaster, was a huge economic shock to the world economy. All G20 countries had negative GDP growth in 2020, except for China, which eked out a 2.3% expansion. All these major economies, and most smaller ones too, carried out Keynesian counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary stimulus policies.
The “vaccine production power” developed by some global actors to fight the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into a soft power tool to influence the international global order.
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an enormous challenge to the ability of political systems to cope with the human and economic disruption caused by the virus. Furthermore, it has generated competitive dynamics in the international arena, notably between democracies and autocracies.
La settimana che si è appena conclusa ha visto la celebrazione di un’importante ricorrenza: il centesimo anniversario dalla fondazione del Partito Comunista Cinese. Una vita longeva che ha determinato il corso delle relazioni internazionali. E anche quello dell’economia globale, da quando Deng Xiaoping varò alla fine degli anni 70 un percorso di riforme che hanno portato la Cina a essere l’unica superpotenza economica in grado di competere con gli USA.
Il settore delle costruzioni cresce più del Pil mondiale. Volendo individuare il motore reale della ripresa post-Covid, dovremmo farlo nelle grandi opere.
La sensazione, emersa leggendo i grandiosi piani di investimento lanciati dalle economie sviluppate, viene oggi confermata dai numeri. Quelli del Cresme, il Centro studi italiano che da 50 anni analizza l’andamento del mercato delle costruzioni a livello mondiale, raccolti all’interno del XXX Rapporto Congiunturale.
Fuori controllo
Un tragico record del mondo: negli ultimi tre mesi in America Latina il numero di decessi pro capite causati da Covid-19 ha toccato i massimi di sempre. La situazione è talmente critica che due settimane fa l’Oms ha chiesto al G7 di donare i vaccini direttamente ai paesi latinoamericani prima ancora che a Covax, l’alleanza internazionale che fornisce vaccini ai paesi a basso e medio reddito.
Eppure in America Latina il numero delle persone vaccinate è alto e continua a crescere. Cosa sta succedendo?
In the aftermath of the pandemic, global demand for infrastructure is booming. National plans around the world show that infrastructure is likely to provide the backbone for a resurgence in public expenditure, and to support growth in economies badly hit by the pandemic.