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The COVID-19 World Order

Podcasts Jul 28, 2020 Daniel W. Drezner and Elmira Bayrasli

For decades, globalization has been narrowing the scope of national sovereignty. Does the COVID-19 pandemic – which has highlighted, yet again, the interconnected nature of today’s most pressing challenges – augur the end of the nation-state’s primacy?

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Daniel W. Drezner

Writing for PS since 2014
1 Commentary

Daniel W. Drezner, Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, is the author, most recently, of The System Worked: How The World Stopped Another Great Depression.

Elmira Bayrasli

Writing for PS since 2016
3 Commentaries

Elmira Bayrasli is the co-founder and CEO of Foreign Policy Interrupted and the author of From The Other Side of The World: Extraordinary Entrepreneurs, Unlikely Places.

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j. von Hettlingen Aug 15, 2020

In this interview Elmira Bayrasli and Daniel W. Drezner discuss whether the principle of territorial sovereignty as agreed at the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that invented the nation state would still be relevant in the post-Covid-19 world, and whether this 17th century construct has become a trap for global cooperation amid the ongoing pandemic. The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty and Eighty Years Wars, (1618–48) and (1568–1648) respectively, created the framework for modem international relations.
Today’s concepts of state sovereignty, mediation between nations, and diplomacy all find their origins in the text of this treaty. Article 2:4 of the UN Charter calls all member states to respect the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of other States. Article 2 (7) states that the UN has no authority to intervene in the domestic affairs of any state. In 2015, the UN adopted unanimously the “right to protect” to avoid wars between states, by setting out the principle of humanitarian intervention – one of the bedrock principles of the Westphalia Treaty.
Although it is seen as the most important treaty of the millennium, ushering in the modern state system that governs our world, critics say it was a European construct. This very system had been undermined by transnational forces throughout history. The East India Company was the most powerful multinational corporation the world had ever seen. Founded in 1600/1602, and granted a monopoly over business with Asia, its power stretched across the globe from Cape Horn to China. Today, it is replaced by tech giants, like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook etc.
Bayrasli and Drezner mention how world leaders have courted tech giants in Sillicon Valley. Xi came in September 2015, when he was en route to attend the UN General Assembly in New York. In Washington Obama gave him a state-visit reception. Although China benefits hugely from globalisation, but as a nationalist, Xi prefers Chinese tech companies, because they are more pliant, while making life harder for foreign companies to do business in China. Days later Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi was received by top executives in Sillicon Valley, home to many tech companies founded or run by Indians and Indian Americans.
After decades of globalisation, critics say our political system has become obsolete, and spasms of resurgent nationalism are a sign of its irreversible decline. Amid the spread of COVID-19 around the world, countries rushed to close borders and fend for themselves. Each imposed health measures –strict lockdown and mask-wearing, among others – It deemed necessary to protect its citizens and shield its national health sector from succumbing to the pandemic.
Meanwhile, policies like Trump’s “America First” and perceived signs of fragmentation among EU countries as Covid-19 devastated Spain and Italy, fuelled suggestions of a return or triumph of nationalism. The World Health Organisation has warned richer countries against isolationism and muscular nationalism, urging all countries to face the global health crisis together, and persuading the advanced economies to show solidarity with poorer countries in their race for a vaccine.
In our world of interdependence and interconnectedness, pandemics, natural disasters and threats in cyberspace respect no borders. It explains why some people maintain the Westphalian form of sovereignty is irrelevant in the 21st century. Neverthess the Treaty itself remains an important concept upon which policy, laws, regulations, conventions and agreements are built.
Although the predecessors of today’s Iran, Russia, India and China did not play a part in drafting the 1648 Treaty, and they reject freedoms and the idea of self-determination, they do appreciate the traditional ideas of security, stability and sovereignty as well as the transnational cooperation and laws provide. So the spirit of the Westphalia Treaty will live on, amid calls for re-inventing the state system.
While Covid-19 may serve as a wake-up call, Drezner does not believe in a system overhaul, and that people may seek a return to the status quo ante. But if the pandemic continues to ravage for years, with little progress made to contain it, this might change our world dramatically.
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Lordferrer None Jul 28, 2020

My dear, such a hurry to implement this new Order. Learn more with your mentor HG Wells, in his book The Open Conspiracy, and let it happen more slowly. Let the people starve some more, so they themselves will ask for tyrannical global rule. Don't mess this up now guys, all my investments are set to profit from your century-old plan. Salutations from Brazil!
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The COVID-19 World Order

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