Covid-19 is putting democracies around the world under strain. Elections have been postponed, parliaments shut down, and media systems stretched. Many democracies are developing innovative ways of ensuring that democratic accountability is maintained, with parliaments and press conferences moving online and new systems for tackling misinformation developed. In other countries, however, executives have made what look dangerously like authoritarian power grabs, silencing their critics and assuming new powers that it may be difficult to wrest back from them. This session will examine the emerging patterns and consider how democracies may be changed by the crisis even after the pandemic has abated.

International treaties and agreements typically rely on good-faith implementation from member states, but nations often fail to live up to their agreements. Recent research by Bakke and Mitchell has revealed that these same nations often enact measures designed to repress civil society, so as to avoid shining a light on this non-compliant behaviour. At the same time, a number of nations have used the Coronavirus pandemic as a pretext for further seizing power and restricting civil liberties at home. These trends thus raise the questions of what this pandemic will do to democratic governance, as well as the faithful implementation of international treaties and agreements. Additionally, what will such repression do for developing nations and how will international organisations, such as the IMF, the United Nations and the World Bank react.

Governments around the world have taken dramatic action in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, restricting liberty to a degree not previously seen in peacetime and causing economic, social, and physical harm to many of their citizens. How should we judge whether such interventions can be justified?

Covid-19 has upended daily life and revealed significant vulnerabilities, as well as strengths, in the governing capacity of both democratic and authoritarian nations. Foremost in everyone’s mind is how nations will learn from this crisis and adjust their governing capabilities and styles, as we eventually move out of lockdown. In this podcast, our speakers will address several important issues and questions, such as: whether we will see an overarching paradigm shift in economic policymaking; what patterns of learning among policymakers we can expect; how national health systems will respond; what role civil society will play in post-lockdown life; and what new roles can we expect for international organisations, such as the WHO, the IMF and the World Bank.