IO COVID-19 Online Supplemental Issue The Song Remains the Same: International Relations After COVID-19

August 19, 2020
By Daniel W. Drezner | International Organization

Perry World House has collaborated with leading journal on international affairs, International Organization, on a special online edition exploring the implications of COVID-19 for the global order.

Since the onset of COVID-19, there has been a surfeit of commentary arguing that 2020 will have transformative effects on world politics. This paper asks whether, decades from now, the pandemic will be viewed as an inflection point. Critical junctures occur when an event triggers a discontinuous shift in key variables or forces a rapid acceleration of preexisting trends. Pandemics have undeniably had this effect in the far past. A welter of economic and medical developments, however, have strongly muted the geopolitical impact of pandemics in recent centuries. A review of how the novel coronavirus has affected the distribution of power and interest in its first six months suggests that COVID-19 will not have transformative effects on world politics. Absent a profound ex post shift in hegemonic ideas, 2020 is unlikely to be an inflection point.

Click here to read the full essay in this special online issue of International Organization >>