The politics of pandemics: COVID19 and the international order

Professor Mark Beeson will discuss how the rapid spread of the coronavirus COVID19 is bringing about an equally rapid transformation in domestic and international politics.

The preparedness of national health systems and the responses of political leaders around the world are being thrown into sharp and often unflattering relief.

The absence of leadership from United States at either the domestic or especially the international level is especially noteworthy. China's response, by contrast, has - after a false start - been remarkably effective. This presentation considers what the crisis may mean for the relative standing of American and Chinese forms of politics and economics. Are democracies capable of responding to the challenge? What are the implications for free market capitalism as it succumbs to yet another crisis? We may not know the answers for a while, but the questions are increasingly urgent.