Remembering the Crowd: Collective Action During the Pandemic (original) (raw)
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Policy and Society, 2020
With indiscriminate geographic and socioeconomic reach, COVID-19 has visited destruction of life and livelihoods on a largely unprepared world and can arguably be declared the new millen-nium's most trying test of state capacity. Governments are facing an urgent mandate to mobilize quickly and comprehensively in response, drawing not only on public resources and coordination capabilities but also on the cooperation and buy-in of civil society. Political and institutional legitimacy are crucial determinants of effective crisis management, and low-trust states lacking such legitimacy suffer a profound disadvantage. Social and economic crises attending the COVID-19 pandemic thus invite scholarly reflection about public attitudes, social leadership, and the role of social and institutional memory in the context of systemic disruption. This article examines Hong Kong as a case where failure to respond effectively could have been expected due to low levels of public trust and political legitimacy, but where, in fact, crisis response was unexpectedly successful. The case exposes underdevelopment in scholarly assumptions about the connections among political legitimacy, societal capacity, and crisis response capabilities. As such, this calls for a more nuanced understanding of how social behaviours and norms are structured and reproduced amidst existential uncertainties and policy ambiguities caused by sudden and convergent crises, and how these can themselves generate resources that bolster societal capacity in the fight against pandemics.
Israel: Politics and Identity in Coronavirus times (POMEPS Studies 39, pp. 43-47)
POMEPS Studies , 2020
Israel adopted some of the social and technological changes brought about by the Coronavirus crisis in 2020, but in regards to the core question of national identity, the preliminary phase of the response to the Coronavirus seems to further support its existing identity: a Jewish, Zionist state that relies on a technologyprone, forward-leaning security establishment.; thus, protecting its core value of providing physical security, while deflecting ontological challenges to its sense of self.
Government, De Facto Authority and Rebel Governance in Times of COVID-19: The Case of Yemen
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Governments, de facto authorities and rebel-governed areas aspiring to “counterstate sovereignty” all have to cope with the pandemic threat posed by COVID-19. Both official militaries and armed non-state groups find themselves at the centre of emergency plans in response to the pandemic, declaring and enforcing social distancing measures such as lockdowns and curfews. The case of Yemen shows how in conflict-torn or fragmented countries, governments, de facto authorities and rebels may show a convergent, although not coordinated, response to COVID-19.
Sentencing the Present: An Archive of a Crisis
Public Seminar, 2020
This is the final compilation of contributions to the “Sentencing the Present” series, co-curated by Benjamin Davis and Jonathon Catlin, and published with Public Seminar in five parts from May-June, 2020. A sentence is protean: It can describe, question, or cry out. A sentence is critical: In passing judgment, it names wrongs, makes decisions, and declares publicly. In a spirit of both open inquiry and political advocacy, and inspired by the response of readers to our own “Theses for Theory in a Time of Crisis,” the past several weeks we have convened an ongoing conversation of critical voices reflecting on the history of the present and the possibilities of the future. To start, we asked some of today’s most pressing thinkers to offer a “thesis,” raise a question or reconsider a word. Our open invitation brought in new voices. Read online at: https://publicseminar.org/essays/sentencing-the-present-an-archive-of-a-crisis/
AGAINST RACISM Vida Cotidiana, espacio-temporalidad y Sensibilidades Sociales
DOCUMENTOS DE TRABAJO DEL CIES, 2020
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, a disastrous event occurred in the United States, the death of George Floyd, the brutal murder of George Floyd. This event provoked numerous reactions of outrage, sadness, rejection and moral fatigue. Thousands of people throughout the United States, in Europe, in Latin America and across the rest of the world, demonstrated against racism in the context of the most widespread pandemic of recent centuries. Hundreds of thousands of people sensitized themselves, once again so far this century, to the "programmed" excesses of a capitalism that can only respond with death. In this framework, a group of friends and colleagues decided to deliver some words as untimely reflections on what happened, on its significance, on its meaning in context. The Center for Research and Sociological Studies proposed to prepare this Working Document which I am now pleased to present. Beyond stylistic refinement and editorial care, what is presented here are reflections of academics from three continents on what happened. Continuing the critical “dictum” of all the social sciences, the works presented here, brief but incisive, are the testimony of how multiple views and the diverse ways of seeing the world are necessary to elaborate a common criticism of all kinds of injustice and all kinds of inequality.
CoronaJihad: COVID-19, Misinformation, and Anti-Muslim Violence in India
ISD Report, 2020
On March 25th, India imposed one of the largest lockdowns in history, confining its 1.3 billion citizens for over a month to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). By the end of the first week of the lockdown, starting March 29th reports started to emerge that there was a common link among a large number of the new cases detected in different parts of the country: many had attended a large religious gathering of Muslims in Delhi. In no time, Hindu nationalist groups began to see the virus not as an entity spreading organically throughout India, but as a sinister plot by Indian Muslims to purposefully infect the population. This report tracks anti-Muslim rhetoric and violence in India related to COVID-19, as well as the ongoing impact on social cohesion in the country.