State–Society Relations around the World through the Lens of the COVID-19 Pandemic

State–Society Relations around the World through the Lens of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author: Federica Duca

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-04

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 100381770X

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The collection examines state–society relations during the COVID-19 pandemic, from governance at the outset of the pandemic to vaccine rollouts, via a series of case studies from around the world. With a focus on the Global South, the book includes chapters on the experiences of – Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica and Indonesia as well as contributions from the Global North – on Sweden, Canada, Czech Republic and New Zealand. The collection demonstrates that the effects of the pandemic can only be properly revealed by looking at the regional and local contexts in which states and societies experienced it. Contributors examine themes such as the nature of contemporary democracy, state capacity, the legitimacy of state institutions, and trust in government, questions of social solidarity, and forms and impacts of inequality. Focusing on national (or sub-national) cases, each chapter analyses the underlying forces and structures revealed when the authority of the state is brought to bear on the agency of citizens under emergency conditions. In doing so, contributors embed analysis of pandemic governance in the historical context of each country or region, highlighting how political choices, histories of the state’s treatment of citizens and the orientations of a region’s elites shaped the actions taken by the state. The book will be of interest to those looking to understand how the pandemic was interpreted, accepted, or contested at the local (national or sub-national) level and to those interested in state–society relations more generally. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in questions of pandemic government from a social scientific point of view and especially to those interested in perspectives from the Global South.


Modernity and the Pandemic

Modernity and the Pandemic

Author: Sean Creaven

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 100381817X

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Modernity and the Pandemic: Decivilization, Imperialism, and COVID-19 applies the tools of critical social theory to make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and presents a critical sociological analysis of aspects of the political and community response to the pandemic. The book focuses on key themes integral to a sociology of pandemics in the ‘global’ age. Firstly, Creaven argues that cultures of individualism and consumerism, and of pervasive and deeply entrenched social inequalities (i.e. decivilization) significantly weaken the cause of public health by weakening the compliance of people with state-mandated non-pharmaceutical interventions (including and especially physical distancing rules) and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Secondly, Creaven examines how interstate competition and imperial politics has undermined an effective global policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy failure with regard to the management of the pandemic is interpreted as being rooted in the dominance of neoliberal ideology and governance in the politics of international relations, particularly in the politics of the leading state actors, by protection of corporate interests at the expense of public health, and in the constraints imposed on state actors by the competitive dynamic of multinational capitalism in the ‘global’ age. Modernity and the Pandemic will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberalism and its social, cultural and epidemiological impacts.


Inequalities, Youth, Democracy and the Pandemic

Inequalities, Youth, Democracy and the Pandemic

Author: Simone Maddanu

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-03-29

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 1040002943

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This book brings together studies from various locations to examine the growing social problems that have been brought to the fore by the COVID-19 outbreak. Employing both qualitative, theoretical and quantitative methods, it presents the impact of the pandemic in different settings, shedding light on political and cultural realities around the world. With attention to inequalities rooted in race and ethnicity, economic conditions, gender, disability, and age, it considers different forms of marginalization and examines the ongoing disjunctions that increasingly characterize contemporary democracies from a multilevel perspective. The book addresses original analyses and approaches from a global perspective on the COVID-19 pandemic, its governance, and its effects in different geographies. These analyses are organized around three main axes: 1) how COVID-19 pandemic worsened social, racial/ethnic, and economic inequalities, including variables such as migration status, gender, and disability; 2) how the pandemic impacted youth and how younger generations cope with public health alarms, and containment measures; 3) how the pandemic posed a challenge to democracy, reshaped the political agenda, and the debate in the public sphere. Contributions from around the world show how local and national issues may overlap on a global scale, laying the foundation for connected sociologies. Based on qualitative as well as quantitative empirical analysis on various categories of individuals and groups, this edited volume reflects on the sociological aspects of current planetary crises which will continue to be at the core of our societies. A wide-ranging, international volume that focuses on both unexpected social changes and new forms of agency in response to a period of crisis, Inequalities, Youth, Democracy and the Pandemic will appeal to scholars with interests in the sociology of health, social problems and inequalities.


Contagion Capitalism

Contagion Capitalism

Author: Sean Creaven

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-15

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1003818188

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Contagion Capitalism situates the COVID-19 pandemic within the systems of global political economy and their attendant cultural modes and theorizes that these systems act as facilitators and drivers of global pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism therefore critiques the institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of the economy, the state, and science, and the grave consequences this has on global public health policy, the ecological crisis of sustainability, and zoonotic pandemic events such as COVID-19. In doing so, this book addresses the failings of what may be termed as “state science” or “establishment science” in managing the pandemic, as personified especially by those elements of the scientific elite placed in the service of the neoliberal state. This book also explores the limitations of corporate pharmacological technoscience in safeguarding public health, arguing that “Big Pharma” offers only partial remedies for problems of human illness and well-being, poses its own dangers to public health, and obfuscates the social bases of public ill-health and of pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism further argues that COVID-19 will not be the last or even the most dangerous such epidemiological event. This is because the social production and global dissemination of zoonotic diseases is integral to contemporary capitalism, by virtue of its instrumental mode of science, its central dynamic of production for the sake of accumulation, and the consumer mode this sustains as its own condition of existence. These are the drivers of what may be termed as zoonotic accelerationism. Contagion Capitalism will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberal ideology and global political economy, and their impact upon social, political and cultural life.


State-Society Relations Around the World Through the Lens of the Covid-19 Pandemic

State-Society Relations Around the World Through the Lens of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author: Federica Duca

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2023-12-04

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781032343242

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The collection examines state-society relations during the COVID-19 pandemic, from governance at the outset of the pandemic to vaccine rollouts, via a series of case studies from around the world. With a focus on the Global South the book includes chapters on the experiences of -Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Jamaica, and Indonesia as well as contributions from the Global North - on Sweden, Canada, Czech Republic, New Zealand. The collection demonstrates that the effects of the pandemic can only be properly revealed by looking at the regional and local contexts in which states and societies experienced it. . Contributors examine themes such as the nature of contemporary democracy, state capacity, the legitimacy of state institutions, and trust in government, questions of social solidarity, and forms and impacts of inequality. Focusing on national (or sub-national) cases, each chapter analyses the underlying forces and structures revealed when the authority of the state is brought to bear on the agency of citizens under emergency conditions. In doing so, contributors embed analysis of pandemic governance in the historical context of each country or region, highlighting how political choices, histories of the state's treatment of citizens, and the orientations of a region's elites shaped the actions taken by the state. The book will be of interest to those looking to understand how the pandemic was interpreted, accepted, or contested at the local (national or sub-national) level and to those interested in state-society relations more generally. It will appeal to scholars and students interested in questions of pandemic government from a social scientific point of view, and especially to those interested in perspectives from the Global South.


Creative Resilience and COVID-19

Creative Resilience and COVID-19

Author: Irene Gammel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-03-20

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1000538230

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Creative Resilience and COVID-19 examines arts, culture, and everyday life as a way of navigating through and past COVID-19. Drawing together the voices of international experts and emerging scholars, this volume explores themes of creativity and resilience in relation to the crisis, trauma, cultural alterity, and social change wrought by the pandemic. The cultural, social, and political concerns that have arisen due to COVID-19 are inextricably intertwined with the ways the pandemic has been discussed, represented, and visualized in global media. The essays included in this volume are concerned with how artists, writers, and advocates uncover the hope, plasticity, and empowerment evident in periods of worldwide loss and struggle—factors which are critical to both overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic and fashioning the post-COVID-19 era. Elaborating on concepts of the everyday and the outbreak narrative, Creative Resilience and COVID-19 explores diverse themes including coping with the crisis through digital distractions, diary writing, and sounds; the unequal vulnerabilities of gender, ethnicity, and age; the role of visuality and creativity including comics and community theatre; and the hopeful vision for the future through urban placemaking, nighttime sociability, and cinema. The book fills an important scholarly gap, providing foundational knowledge from the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic through a consideration of the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In doing so, Creative Resilience and COVID-19 expands non-medical COVID-19 studies at the intersection of media and communication studies, cultural criticism, and the pandemic.


State–Society Relations in Guatemala

State–Society Relations in Guatemala

Author: Omar Sanchez-Sibony

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 1666910104

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By embedding Guatemala in recent conceptual and theoretical work in comparative politics and political economy, this volume advances knowledge about country’s politics, economy, and state-society interactions. The contributors examine the stubborn realities and challenges afflicting Guatemala during the post-Peace-Accords-era across the following subjects: the state, subnational governance, state-building, peacebuilding, economic structure and dynamics, social movements, civil-military relations, military coup dynamics, varieties of capitalism, corruption, and the level of democracy. The book deliberately avoids the perils of parochialism by placing the country within larger scholarly debates and paradigms.


The Fight for Climate After COVID-19

The Fight for Climate After COVID-19

Author: Alice C. Hill

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0197549705

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"The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 draws on the troubled and uneven COVID-19 experience to illustrate the critical need to ramp up resilience rapidly and effectively on a global scale. After years of working alongside public health and resilience experts crafting policy to build both pandemic and climate change preparedness, Alice C. Hill exposes parallels between the underutilized measures that governments should have taken to contain the spread of COVID-19 -- such as early action, cross-border planning, and bolstering emergency preparation -- and the steps leaders can take now to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Through practical analyses of current policy and thoughtful guidance for successful climate adaptation, The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 reveals that, just as our society has transformed itself to meet the challenge of coronavirus, so too will we need to adapt our thinking and our policies to combat the ever-increasing threat of climate change." --


The Usage and Impact of ICTs during the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Usage and Impact of ICTs during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Author: Shengnan Yang

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-03-03

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1000846571

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This book takes a holistic view of the roles of ICTs during the pandemic through the lens of social informatics, as it is critical to our understanding of the relations between society and technology. Specific attention is given to various stakeholders and social contexts, with analysis at the individual, group, community, and society levels. Pushing the boundaries of information science research with timely and critical research questions, this edited volume showcases information science research in the context of COVID-19, by specifically accentuating sociotechnical practices, activities, and ICT interventions during the pandemic. Its social informatics focus appeals to a broad audience, and its global and international orientation provides a timely, innovative, and much-needed perspective to information science. This book is unique in its interdisciplinary nature as it consists of research studies on the intersections between ICTs and health, culture, social interaction, civic engagement, information dissemination, work, and education. Chapters apply a range of research methods, including questionnaire surveys, content analyses, and case studies from countries in Asia, Europe, and America, as well as global and international comparisons. The book’s primary target audience includes scholars and students in information and library science, particularly those interested in the social aspect of the information society. It may be of interest to information professionals, library practitioners, educators, and information policymakers, as well as scholars and students in science and technology studies, cultural studies, political science, public administration, sociology, and communication studies.


Public Health Asia During Covid-19 Panhb

Public Health Asia During Covid-19 Panhb

Author: Schneider VEERE

Publisher: Social Studies in Asian Medicine

Published: 2022-02-09

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 9789463720977

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Every nation in Asia has dealt with COVID-19 differently and with varying levels of success in the absence of clear and effective leadership from the WHO. As a result, the WHO's role in Asia as a global health organization is coming under increasing pressure. As its credibility is slowly being eroded by public displays of incompetence and negligence, it has also become an arena of contestation. Moreover, while the pandemic continues to undermine the future of global health governance as a whole, the highly interdependent economies in Asia have exposed the speed with which pandemics can spread, as intensive regional travel and business connections have caused every area in the region to be hit hard. The migrant labor necessary to sustain globalized economies has been strained and the security of international workers is now more precarious than ever, as millions have been left stranded, seen their entry blocked, or have limited access to health services. This volume provides an accessible framework for the understanding the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in Asia, with a specific emphasis on global governance in health and labor.