Democratic horizons in times of coronavirus
Pauli Huotari and Teivo Teivainen[1]
In crisis situations like the current one, the safeguards of the established order are activated, and authoritarian initiatives attempting to exploit the situation are not uncommon. But forms of mutual aid and alternative projects also emerge, seeking to expand democratic horizons and the possibilities for change.
Exceptional moments legitimize exceptional political responses. Declaring a state of emergency generally entails a reduction of democratic rights and freedoms. However, times like these can also offer an opportunity to promote experiments that expand the boundaries of what is politically possible in ways that enhance democratic imagination.
A broadening of the horizon of political possibilities can mean, for example, an expansion of state regulation. National budgets suddenly become more flexible, opening up new space for Keynesian-inspired concepts in public policy, with the aim of increasing state intervention to mitigate the impact of the crisis. At the same time, the crisis can also encourage non-state forms of collective organization. Mutual aid, historically championed by many anarchists, becomes a concrete reality in many localities.
Union action can take on new dimensions, as in the case of bus drivers refusing to control fares for fear of contagion. This could enable experimentation with free public transportation as a mere unintended consequence, but it could also broaden the horizons for a socially engaged unionism capable of incorporating the demands of other social movements. Meanwhile, for privileged academics, staying home can increase the time available to reflect on alternative world orders and to discuss (digitally for now) how to implement them.
Many of these experiences may be brief and reversible. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has terrible consequences for humanity. The risks of infection are not distributed equally. Many people have obligations that make isolation and social distancing difficult. It is important to confront the potential dystopian despair it is generating among the most vulnerable, as well as to seek democratic solutions during this crisis. For better or for worse, the crisis is opening cracks in the present that may offer clues for the future.
Coronavirus governance
An exogenous impact on social and political realities attracts what Vivien Schmidt has called “discursive entrepreneurs.” They “serve as catalysts for change, as they harness and articulate the ideas of discursive communities and coalitions.” A successful intervention by discursive entrepreneurs can lead to the definition of possible ways forward in terms of the entrepreneurial paradigm. From a different perspective, it can also mean what Naomi Klein (2020) states: “The future will be determined by anyone willing to fight harder for the ideas available.” Klein may be placing too much emphasis here on a voluntarist perspective of agency, but the various media platforms are currently overflowing with attempts to articulate immediate responses to the problem of how to control the crisis caused by the pandemic. In combination with the responses of states and other institutions, a new field of participatory specialization has emerged, which we call “coronavirus governance.”
Coronavirus governance includes ideological curiosities, such as the right-wing opposition in Finland calling on a left-wing government to assume more authoritarian powers. Globally, many are questioning whether China's handling of the crisis provides evidence for—or against—the crisis management capabilities of an openly authoritarian country. In discussions about emerging coronavirus governance, South Korea is sometimes mentioned as a potential model to emulate.
If Europeans and Americans today look to Asian experiences for guidance, this could have some longer-term consequences. In traditional Eurocentric and colonialist approaches, still very much in force today, others always need to learn from Europe. Europeans and people from other parts of the "Global West" trying to learn from others could make the world less Eurocentric and, at least potentially and in some ways, more democratic. To use terms coined by the political scientist and feminist scholar Saara Särmä, there is a possibility that the post-coronavirus (post-coronial) world will be slightly more postcolonial. But also, learning from China could lead to a more widespread diffusion of authoritarian control techniques. For the democratic future, in its various possibilities, the coronavirus crisis presents both dangers and opportunities.
As Naomi Klein argued in *The Shock Doctrine* (2007), the opportunities presented by sudden crises are often defined by elites. However, a shock like the coronavirus pandemic can also allow new ideas to enter the public discourse. For example, during the outbreak of mad cow disease, some demands external to the elite discourse managed to temporarily enter the global political arena. These included, as Mika Aatola points out, demands related to public health and consumer protection. However, the long-term effects were limited. It is possible—but by no means guaranteed—that the unprecedented attention the global media is giving to the current crisis will contribute to health issues gaining greater priority in future public policy.
To lift the veil on the past
The response to the coronavirus crisis may help to overturn flawed assumptions of the past. The claim that publicly funding a Green New Deal was impossible is being challenged by new policies aimed at confronting the apparent inability of markets to manage the current crisis. If there is public money and political will to tackle the coronavirus, why can't there also be the same to address the climate change crisis? Fiscally conservative countries, such as Germany, are liberalizing their stances on increases in public spending and the fiscal deficit. British Conservatives shifted from austerity policies to massive fiscal stimulus, although signs of a change were already visible even before the pandemic.
The expansion of state intervention certainly involves an element of class solidarity: the immediate interests of capitalists are at risk. The intrinsically political nature of capitalism, as Howard Zinn warned in A People's History of the United States (2011), becomes more visible when corporations cannot rely on markets and need a shield against potential protests from below. There is a long-standing debate among economists and finance professionals about the role and impacts of monetary and fiscal policies. Some of the policies under discussion are currently being tested.
The crisis also inspires political initiatives to provide relief to those suffering, even if the motivation is largely to bolster existing power structures. In the United States, Tulsi Gabbard, a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020, proposed a $1,000 basic income during the crisis. Direct transfer programs (helicopter money) have become increasingly radical, and the Trump administration even proposed sending checks to Americans to combat the recession. For a country with relative economic sovereignty, approving Gabbard's proposal would not pose a serious financial problem. There is no guarantee that these exceptional measures will result in long-term transformation, but they can make demands that may have seemed unrealistic more socially acceptable. A permanent basic income scheme could help prevent the spread of the virus in future pandemics, as it would make it easier for people to stay home.
The end of "There is no alternative"
The current macroeconomic rescue packages are not proof of a paradigm shift, but new practices are emerging in other areas as well. Routines are being disrupted, and there are material changes in our daily lives. Work and leisure habits are being modified. All of this makes it possible to see beyond the classic postulates that "there is no alternative."
Grassroots movements can gain importance in times of crisis. New mutual aid groups are inventing ways to assist people in their neighborhoods. In Helsinki, a Facebook group states: “The idea is to connect those who are quarantined, the sick, and the vulnerable with community members who are close to them and can run errands and bring them necessary supplies (or other things they might need).” It remains to be seen to what extent this type of organization could evolve into more lasting forms of non-state community-based political building.
In his forthcoming book, *The Revival of Political Imagination*, Keijo Lakkala argues that “specifically, utopia can be understood as a social counter-practice motivated by the desire for a better existence. Utopia has the potential both to relativize the foundations of current society (distancing us from the existing social order) and to create fractures within the present, opening up possibilities for new ways of being and doing. The disruption of the present opens up a plurality of futures.” Alongside the negative supply and demand shocks occurring in today’s markets, the crisis may increase both the supply and demand for utopian thought.
As John Holloway wrote in Crack Capitalism (2010), the crisis opens cracks in “a world that presents itself as closed.” When the fractures are large enough, the myriad possibilities that exist within the structure of social reality, beneath current practices, become visible. In these contexts, the safeguards of the established order are put into action, and authoritarian demands attempt to seize the moment. But others are working on the disruptive elements of the present to expand democratic horizons and open up a plurality of futures.
[1] Pauli Huotari is a doctoral student in world politics at the University of Helsinki. Teivo Teivainen is a senior lecturer in world politics at the University of Helsinki and the founding director of the Democracy and Global Transformation Program at the National University of San Marcos. He is a researcher affiliated with the CLACSO Network. Original version published in New SocietyMarch 2020. Translation: María Alejandra Cucchi.
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