Corona Blog Entries:

• Luke Cooper:
  The Mask that Slipped

  Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a wave of cronyism and outsourcing which poses a threat to the health of our communities, institutions and even our democracy. Former IWM Visiting Fellow Luke Cooper explores the story of Dominic Cummings, cronyism and Britain’s new authoritarianism.
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• Eric Reinhart and Eram Alam:
  The Neocoloniality of Who Cares: US Underinvestment in Medical Education Exacerbates Global Inequities

  November 17, 2020
  The US has chronically underinvested in medical education and relies on the annual recruitment of thousands of foreign trained healthcare professionals from nations with far greater unmet healthcare needs. This bears partial responsibility for the dire situation India finds itself in during the pandemic, write Eric Reinhart, currently IWM Visiting Fellow, and Eram Alam.
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• Slavenka Drakulic:
  Surviving COVID-19

  November 10, 2020
  After six days on a ventilator in Stockholm, Croatian writer, essayist and journalist Slavenka Drakulić, who has been a guest and speaker at the IWM several times, reckons with returning to herself. Read her article published on the Yale Review website.
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• Incentives to Increase the Use of Tracing and Testing Apps: Carrots or Sticks?

  IWM Rector Shalini Randeria moderated a panel discussion with Patricia Ndumbi, (Technical Officer, World Health Organization) and Suerie Moon (Co-Director, Global Health Centre, The Graduate Institute Geneva) at an online conference organized by the Graduate Institute Geneva on October 27.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  Der Corona-Impfstoff zwischen geostrategischem Instrument und globalem öffentlichen Gut

  October 1
  IWM Rektorin Shalini Randeria geht in ihrem Beitrag in dem Sammelband "Jenseits von Corona" unter anderem der Frage nach, ob es legitim ist, einen Impfstoff, der mit öffentlichen Geldern entwickelt und hergestellt wird, als Eigentum eines privaten Unternehmens patentieren zu lassen.
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• Marci Shore:
  The price of freedom. A transatlantic conversation

  Septmeber 29
  At a moment that is Hamletesque in Minsk and Washington alike, IWM Visiting Fellow Marci Shore illuminates moments of choice, and what these mean for freedom and human dignity. The following is a transatlantic conversation inspired by Ukraine, moderated by Kant and open to all.
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• Magdalena Nowicka-Franczak:
  The Virus of Disrespect: What the Pandemic Says about Public Debate in Poland

  September 10, 2020
  In her comment on the second round of the Polish presidential election in July 2020, former Bronisław Geremek Junior Visiting Fellow Magdalena Nowicka-Franczak writes that the election was expected to shape Polish democracy for years to come and that Rafał Trzaskowski, candidate of the biggest opposition bloc, was seen as another Donald Tusk. Instead, the election campaign ended up being a bitter reflection on the quality of Polish public debate carried out in the shadow of the worldwide COVID crisis.
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• Bernd Marin:
  Die Zukunft der Arbeit

  September 5, 2020
  Der Sozialwissenschaftler und ehemalige Europe's Futures Visiting Fellow Bernd Marin sprach mit Eva Pfisterer im Rahmen der 36. Internationalen Sommergespräche der Waldviertel-Akademie über das Leben, die Arbeit und die Wohlfahrt nach dem "Corona-Camp" und die damit verbundenen krisenbedingten Veränderungen.
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• Shalini Randeria, Deval Desai:
  Unfreezing Unspent Social Special-Purpose Funds for the Covid-19 Crisis: Critical Reflections from India

  August 27, 2020
  In India, the government launched a US$22.6 billion financial support package for the poor and marginalized as a result of Covid-19. Approximately US$ 4.2 billion came from a vast pile of unspent social special-purpose funds. In their article published in "World Development" IWM Rector Shalini Randeria and Deval Desai explain why unspent funds exist, and why they could be mobilized against Covid-19?
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• Ivan Krastev:
  Authoritarian Leaders Do Not Benefit From the Corona Crisis

  August 5, 2020
  IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev talks with Boris Marte, Head of Erste HUB, in Erste Foundation's video series "The Call" about his role as public intellectual in times of crisis, the authority of science, power of fear, trading freedom for safety and the danger of not taking risks.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  “Impfstoffe sollten globales Gemeingut sein”

  August 5, 2020
  Die Sozialanthropologin und Rektorin des IWM Shalini Randeria spricht sich im Standard-Interview gegen Patente für Corona-Impfstoffe aus und fordert Solidarität mit einkommensschwachen Ländern.
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• Paolo Costa:
  Prisoners of an Image. Secularization as an Epidemic

  August 4, 2020
  What will stay with us after the CoViD-19 pandemic is over is not only the bewilderment at a life change that no sane person could have foreseen only a few months ago or the collective anxiety for an indeterminate and insidious threat impending over mankind. Besides this, there are some images that have disturbed the consciences of those who, to evoke Max Weber, are still religiously musical despite the apparently inexorable process of the disenchantment of the world, writes former IWM Visiting Fellow Paolo Costa.
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• Central Europe after COVID-19: The New Republic of Letters

  July 15, 2020
  The IWM has launched a new project in cooperation with the Institute of International Relations Prague: The New Republic of Letters. The first iteration of the dialogue over distance concerns the visions of future Central Europe in view of the COVID-19 crisis that confronts societies of the region with new or newly dynamised challenges while opening a historical space for thinking through, but also acting on political alternatives. Among the contributors are numerous former IWM Visiting Fellows such as Jan-Werner Müller, Marek Cichocki, Jan Sowa and Chantal Mouffe.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  Die Corona-Krise wäre eine Chance, unseren Lebensstil umzugestalten

  July 10, 2020
  Auf der Erde leben immer mehr Menschen - aber nicht zu viele, findet Shalini Randeria. Die Soziologin und Rektorin des IWM erklärt, warum eine Kombination aus mehr Menschen und mehr Wohlstand nicht unbedingt dem Klima schaden muss.
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• Ivan Krastev, Shalini Randeria:
  The Paradoxes of a Post-Covid-19 World

  July 3, 2020
  IWM Rector Shalini Randeria in conversation with IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev on the paradoxical world and new power dynamics emerging from the COVID-19 crisis.
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• Shalini Randeria, Deval Desai, Christine Lutringer:
  Emergency Use of Public Funds: Implications for Democratic Governance

  July 1, 2020
  A number of states and public authorities have reappropriated massive amounts of unspent welfare funds under Covid-19. In their article published in "Global Challenges"  IWM Rector Shalini Randeria, Deval Desai and Christine Lutringer use the cases of the EU and India to demonstrate why these funds were not already spent in the first place and how their reallocation in an emergency situation affects the democratic safeguards to ensure accountability for their allocation and use.
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• Shalini Randeria, Luke Cooper, Mary Kaldor et al.:
  The New Authoritarianism: COVID-19 and the Challenges Facing Democracy

  June 24, 2020
  Over the last decade political authoritarianism has been on the rise across the globe. The ‘authoritarian wave’ has touched most continents and regions. So even before the crisis unleashed by Coronavirus many peoples across the world were resisting rising authoritarianism, nationalism and racism. Listen to the podcast or watch the video of this LSE online event, in which, among others, IWM Rector Shalini Randeria and former Visiting Fellows Mary Kaldor (chair) and Luke Cooper discussed the results of a new report, that surveys the rise of anti-democratic forces and assesses their reaction to these extraordinary recent developments.
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• Luiza Bialasiewicz, Hanna L. Muehlenhoff:
  ‘Personal sovereignty’ in pandemics: or, why do today’s ‘sovereignists’ reject state sovereignty?

  July 1, 2002
  "The focus on individual agency and responsibility comes, indeed, with the denial of public health as a collective good (and responsibility)" write former IWM Visiting Fellow Luiza Bialasiewicz and Hanna L. Muehlenhoff in their latest article on Open Democracy.
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• Masha Gessen:
  ‘I never thought I’d say it, but Trump is worse than Putin’

  June 27, 2020
  Former IWM Visiting Fellow Masha Gessen in an interview with The Guardian on their latest publication "Surviving Autocracy" (Granta Books, 2020) and who's worse Putin or Trump?
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• Ruth Wodak:
  What future for the EU after COVID-19?

  June 25, 2020
  "The contradiction between transnational institutions and nation states has always been inherent in the conception of the EU". In her most recent article published on Open Democracy linguist and IWM Visiting Fellow Ruth Wodak says that the current crisis urgently calls for visions for the EU and, indeed, the world post-COVID-19.
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• Ivan Krastev & Mark Leonard:
  Europe’s Pandemic Politics: How the Virus Has Changed the Public’s Worldview

  June 23, 2020
  New research reveals that the crisis has revolutionised citizens’ perceptions of global order – scrambling the distinctions between nationalism and globalism. Read the latested policy brief on Europe’s pandemic politics written by IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev and Mark Leonhard based on an ECFR survey.
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• Anthony Barnett:
  Osman Kavala and the Snails

  June 23, 2020
  Ten minutes of delight against oppression - in his latest contribution published on Open Democracy former IWM Visiting Fellow Anthony Barnett writes about the world’s first lockdown opera. Osman Kavala, supporter of culture, human rights champion and bridge-builder, is approaching 1000 days in Turkey’s highest security prison on trumped-up charges. This lock-down opera film is an appeal to #FreeOsmanKavala.
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• Maria Lipman:
  Coronavirus statt Kaiserkrönung. Putins Verfassung und die Pandemie

  Juni 23, 2020
  "Mitte März schien Putin auf der Siegerseite zu sein: Wieder einmal hatte er alle ausgetrickst, sich die „ewige Präsidentschaft“ gesichert und die Stabilität im Land gefestigt. Doch schon am Ende des Monats stieß er auf einen Gegner, der ihn zum Nachgeben zwang: Die Corona-Epidemie hatte Russland erreicht. Die politischen Folgen könnten gravierend sein," schreibt Maria Lipman, Former IWM Visting Fellow.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  Production of Spatial Entanglements through Law

  June 12, 2020
  On the occasion of the Second International Conference of the SFB 1265 entitled "Polycontextural Spatial Arrangements" in February 2020, IWM Rector Shalini Randeria gave a talk on the "Production of Spatial Entanglements through Law". This video includes statements by her and other participants of the conference such as Hubert Knoblauch, Joyce Nyairo, Jörg Stollmann and Albena Yaneva.
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• Irina Borogan, Andrei Soldatov:
  Post-Pandemic Russia. Political and Economic Uncertainty, Lack of Proactive Leaders and Putin’s Falling Rating

  June 10, 2020
  The pandemic was not the first crisis that Russia faced this year. It arrived in the country against a backdrop of falling oil prices and Putin’s announcement of changes to the constitution that would allow him to remain president forever. This announcement deeply shook elites, the business community and the intelligentsia, all of whom were left wondering: would Putin turn the country into another Central Asian dictatorship with his dramatic move? Former IWM Visiting Fellows Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov report on the consequences of CoVID-19 for Russia's politics and society.
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• Walther Ch. Zimmerli:
  Wird “Nach” Corona nichts mehr so sein wie zuvor?

  9. Juni 2020
  Philosophische Gedanken anlässlich von „Lockerung“ und „Ver-rückung der Zeit“. Ein Essay von Walther Ch. Zimmerli, ehemaliger IWM Visiting Fellow.
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• Ranabir Samaddar (ed.):
  Burdens of an Epidemic:
  A Policy Perspective on Covid-19 and Migrant Workers

  June 8, 2020
  Burdens of an Epidemic: Covid-19 and Migrant Labour comes out close on the heels of Borders of an Epidemic: Covid-19 and Migrant Labour that was published in April 2020. This volume is a companion work of the latter. While Borders of an Epidemic was documentary in purpose and nature, Burdens of an Epidemic analyses the issue of migrant labour from several dimensions of the epidemic. The purpose of this tract is to present a policy perspective of the contemporary situation.
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• Volodymyr Yermolenko:
  Why Ukraine’s Fight Against the Virus Deserves a Look

  June 8, 2020
  "On the surface, there is nothing interesting in Ukraine’s fight against coronavirus. Although we don’t know what will happen next, something in Ukraine’s reaction to the virus deserves a second look." Volodymyr Yermolenko
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• John Palattella:
  Apocalypse à la Mode

  June 5, 2020
  The appeal of thinking of covid-19 as an apocalypse has become widespread. It stems from a deep conviction about the contemporary world’s decadence as well as a prophetic confidence that the world’s renovation can occur only after the old order has been swept away, writes John Palattella, editor at The Point and former IWM Visiting Fellow.
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• Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann:
  Transformation of Holocaust Memory in Times of COVID-19

  May 6, 2020
  "The restrictions posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on Holocaust commemoration intensified the development of distinct modes of social media memory."  writes IWM Visiting Fellow Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann.
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• Anja Naglič:
  Prodemocratic Protests and Movements During the Pandemic

  June 3, 2020
  "Since the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been many reports on the political misuse of the global crisis, on numerous authoritarian governments and autocrats strengthening their power. Much less has been reported on the prodemocratic, progressive revolts against the rising authoritarianism – revolts taking place not just in individual countries, but also at the international level." writes former IWM Visiting Fellow Anja Naglič.
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• Anthony Barnett:
  Out of the Belly of Hell: COVID-19 and the Humanisation of Globalisation

  June 1, 2020
  It turns out we did change the world. And we must keep changing it, writes Anthony Barnett, co-founder of openDemocracy.net and IWM Visiting Fellow in 2018 in his latest contribution - a history of the world since 1968 and what happens next.
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• Another Now

  June 1, 2020
  Former IWM Visting Fellow Anthony Barnett and Rosemary Bechler in conversation with Yanis Varoufakis on DiEM25.
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• COVID-19 and the Human Side of Globalisation

  May 28, 2020, Conversation with: Anthony Barnett, Founder of openDemocracy, and former IWM Visiting Fellow; Achille Mbembe, Leading post-colonial philosopher, who developed the idea of necropolitics; Adam Ramsay, editor at openDemocracy and former IWM Visiting Fellow; Thea Riofrancos, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College. Chair: Réka Kinga Papp, editor-in-chief of Eurozine and former IWM Visiting Fellow.
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• Ivan Krastev:
  Is It Tomorrow, Yet?
  Learning to Live with the Unthinkable

  May 28, 2020
  What will the world look like after the Coronavirus? What impact will it have on our democracy? How will the crisis change the way we live together? And what can we learn from it? In his most recent book Ist heute schon morgen? Wie die Pandemie Europa verändert (Ullstein, June 2020), well-known Bulgarian political scientist and IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Krastev identifies five paradoxes of COVID-19. This is an excerpt of his introduction.
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• Karolina Wigura, Jarosław Kuisz:
  The Political Meaning of Cataclysms

  May 26, 2020
  "In a time of collective disasters, democracy may be one of the first victims." write Karolina Wigura and Jarosław Kuisz (both former IWM Visting Fellows)
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• Pirmin Fessler and Martin Schürz:
  The Wealth Effects of Bailouts: A Quantitative Assessment

  May 9, 2020
  Once again, income earned by the many is used to save the wealth of the few. That's the bottom line of the latest contribution by former IWM Visiting Fellow Martin Schürz and Pirmin Fessler published on the website of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.
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• Charles Taylor:
  After COVID-19, we will have ‘the mother of all battles’ over the future of the planet…

  May 19, 2020
  "Perhaps the only good thing we've seen from this is incredible solidarity across societies." says IWM Permanent Fellow Charles Taylor.
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• Lucy Ashton:
  After the Lockdown Lifts

  May 18, 2020
  Austria’s lockdown has lifted. The chances of infection just now are extremely low, the virus is a phantom. We should trust that. But as I cycled down Mariahilfer Strasse, Vienna’s main shopping street, I didn’t feel very trusting. There were people everywhere, some masked, most not, no one keeping much of a distance, writes former IWM Milena Jesenská Visiting Fellow Lucy Ashton.
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• Timofei Bordachev:
  Threat of a New Bipolarity?

  April 30, 2020
  "Over the past few weeks, the idea of an almost inevitable emergence of a new bipolarity in the form of a confrontation between China and the United States has turned from a bold assumption into a common assertion – the starting point of a lot of discussion about what the main content of international politics will be following the systemic crisis of 2020." writes Timofei Bordachev.
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• Scott Spector:
  The Novel Corona Virus Crisis as Pedagogical Opportunity: History of the Present

  May 15, 2020
  "One would of course never wish for students to have to live through a moment that causes all of us to rethink our place in the world and to contemplate alternative futures as the result of mass calamity. The least we can do as educators, though, is to offer them the means of understanding to navigate that reflection as critical and informed students of history." writes former IWM Visiting Fellow Scott Spector.
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• Ruth Wodak:
  Was der Coronawortschatz über unsere Demokratie verrät

  May 13, 2020
  Inwiefern die Begriffe »Maskenpflicht« oder »Kontaktsperre« Widerstand auslösen, erklärt Sprachwissenschaftlerin und IWM Visiting Fellow Ruth Wodak im Interview mit Perspective Daily.
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• Miloš Vec:
  Don’t Stand So Close To Me.
  Recht und soziale Regeln des „Social Distancing“

  14. Mai 2020
  "Die ubiquitäre, universelle Reichweite der Norm des "social distancing" maßregelt unser aller Leben sowohl im Öffentlichen als auch im Privaten (bis hinein in das Intime) durch präzedenzlose Verbote und Gebote.", schreibt IWM Permanent Fellow Miloš Vec.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  Armes reiches Indien

  12. Mai 2020
  IWM Rektorin Shalini Randeria spricht über den Zustand ihres Landes in Zeiten von Corona und darüber hinaus.
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• Aleksandra Głos:
  Trusting in the Difficult

  May 11, 2020
  "In its cross-border and cross-cultural dimensions solidarity is still, perhaps the biggest, challenge of this pandemic." writes Aleksandra Głos, former Józef Tischner Junior Visiting Fellow at the IWM.
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• Clemena Antonova:
  On Talking Morality in Modern Politics: The Coronavirus Crisis and Europe

  May 8, 2020
  "What comes across is not just political weakness expressed in the sense of confusion, erratic behaviour, and lack of initiative on part of the EU – all of which is bad enough. What comes across looks very much like moral callousness and what appears to be an almost stubborn refusal to care in the face of tragedy and death.", says Clemena Antonova, Research Director of IWM’s program Eurasia in Global Dialogue.
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• Timothy Garton Ash:
  A better world can emerge after coronavirus. Or a much worse one

  May 8, 2020
  Most Europeans support a universal basic income, yet young people doubt democracy’s capacity to deliver change. Read the latest comment by British historian Timothy Garton Ash in The Guardian. As a member of IWM's Board of Trustees he gave a highly regarded lecture on the topic of Free Speech on the occasion of the Institute's annual board meeting in 2016.
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• Holly Case:
  Propheteering has no Future

  May 6, 2020
  A friend of mine once said there are two kinds of people in the world: those who think humans are basically good and those who think we’re essentially bad. Most bad politics, she believes, are rooted in the latter position. If she’s right, there are some horrendous politics in circulation right now.
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• Till van Rahden:
  Making Democracy Safe for an Age of Pandemics

  May 4, 2020
  “Any action against the pandemic should breathe the spirit of democracy”, says Till van Rahden, former IWM Visiting Fellow and Visiting Lecturer at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.
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• Shalini Randeria:
  Defending Press Freedom in the Time of Coronavirus

  April 30, 2020
  The coronavirus crisis has provided a welcome pretext for soft authoritarian regimes the world over to strengthen their hold on power, with their declared states of exception potentially becoming the new normal, says IWM Rector Shalini Randeria.
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