Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was much discussion about a ‘return of great power politics’ and in particular the increasing strategic competition between China and the US as the new dynamic of international politics.
The pandemic created a demand for greater cooperation, which is also urgently needed to respond to the global challenge of climate change. But COVID-19 seems to have intensified what Joe Biden has called ‘extreme competition’ between China and the US.
The pandemic has also created particular challenges for democracies, which increasingly see themselves in a struggle with authoritarianism.
This webinar brings together three leading thinkers, each of whom has written a book exploring the consequences of the pandemic for the global system. They discuss if COVID-19 has transformed international politics – and if so, how.
- How will the consequences of the pandemic shape the mixture of cooperation and competition in the international system?
- Will they strengthen or undermine the ‘liberal international order’?
- Will it intensify, or complicate, the fault lines between democracies and authoritarian states?
