Democratic Theory
Democracy in the Time of COVID-19
7/2
Publication date: Sep 2020
ISNN: 2332-8908
Berghahn
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![](/sites/default/files/filefield_paths/democratic-theory_cover.jpg)
As countries around the world went into lockdown, the editors of this special issue of "Democratic Theory" turned to 32 leading scholars working on different aspects of democracy and asked them what they think about how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted democracy. Synthesizing the reflections of these scholars, presented in 20 articles of the special issues, five key insights about the prospects and challenges of enacting democracy both during and after the pandemic emerge: (1) COVID-19 has had corrosive effects on already endangered democratic institutions, (2) COVID-19 has revealed alternative possibilities for democratic politics in the state of emergency, (3) COVID-19 has amplified the inequalities and injustices within democracies, (4) COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for institutional infrastructure for prolonged solidarity, and (5) COVID-19 has highlighted the predominance of the nation-state and its limitations. Collectively, these insights open up important normative and practical questions about what democracy should look like in the face of an emergency and what we might expect it to achieve under such circumstances.
Table of Contents
Editorial
Democracy in a Global Emergency - Five Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: Afsoun Afsahi, Emily Beausoleil, Rikki Dean, Selen A. Ercan, and Jean-Paul Gagnon
Articles
Who Governs in Deep Crises? The Case of Germany
By: Wolfgang Merkel
COVID and the Era of Emergencies - What Type of Freedom is at Stake?
By: Danielle Celermajer and Dalia Nassar
How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy?
By: Lauri Rapeli and Inga Saikkonen
Centralized or Decentralized - Which Governance Systems are Having a “Good” Pandemic?
By: Jennifer Gaskell and Gerry Stoker
COVID Revolution
By: Jodi Dean
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Central and Eastern Europe - The Rise of Autocracy and Democratic Resilience
By: Petra Guasti
Latin America and COVID-19 - Political Rights and Presidential Leadership to the Test
By: Brigitte Weiffen
The Democracy of Everyday Life in Disaster - Holding Our Lives in Their Hands
By: Nancy L. Rosenblum
Babies and Boomers - Intergenerational Democracy and the Political Epidemiology of COVID-19
By: Toby Rollo
COVID-19, Democracies, and (De)Colonialities
By: Marcos S. Scauso, Garrett FitzGerald, Arlene B. Tickner, Navnita Chadha Behera, Chengxin Pan, Chih-yu Shih, and Kosuke Shimiz
Gender, Leadership and Representative Democracy - The Differential Impacts of the Global Pandemic
By: Kim Rubenstein, Trish Bergin, and Pia Rowe
Innovation Policy, Structural Inequality, and COVID-19
By: Shobita Parthasarathy
Rethinking Democratic Theories of Justice in the Economy after COVID-19
By: Louise Haagh
Solidarity in Times of Pandemics
By: Barbara Prainsack
Theorizing Democracy in a Pandemic
By: Peter Levine
American Quarantine - The Right to Housing in a Pandemic
By: Bonnie Honig
Open Borders and the COVID-19 Pandemic
By: David Owen
European Democracy after COVID-19
By: Ulrike Guérot and Michael Hunklinger
No Demos in the Pandemic
By: Asma Abbas
Coronavirus, Democracy and the Challenges of Engaging a Planetary Order
By: Milja Kurki