This volume explores the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for the sustainability of the present global political and economic system and the extent to which that system may as a result be undergoing transformation. Towards this aim, the contributing authors raise a number of key questions. First, what is likely to be the impact of the pandemic on the current global order based on neoliberal hyper-globalization? Second, what insights do earlier pandemics along with other inter-related crises such as those of climate, inequality, social reproduction, and continued fallout of the global financial crisis offer for understanding the medium- to long-term implications of COVID-19? Third, to what extent might the COVID pandemic lead to progressive political transformations? Towards this latter goal, the contributors to this volume also offer a number of suggestions as to what a post-COVID-19 world might look like and how post-COVID transformations might be channeled in a direction more conducive towards social justice and equality.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Globalizations.