The vaccination process across the world is underway, and after almost complete vaccination of the world population, we will see a post-pandemic world that is going to be different from the pre-pandemic world, especially in the context of Globalization and the role of states in the world.
In the post-1980 world, Globalization became the prevailing phenomenon that impacted the whole world and its functioning. Whether it was the realm of society, power politics, or economics of the world, whether, in the context of domestic affairs or global affairs, Globalization has been unavoidable and un-resistible until the ongoing pandemic has erupted after which many changes have been brought to the world. Social distancing and travel restrictions protocols posed challenges but that is temporary, but what offered concerns to the policymakers and businesses of the world that how fragile the functioning of the global economy is, and how the economies of states are depending on this fragile mechanism.
The interdependence and interconnectedness between national economies as well as multinational corporations and organizations in the global economy are in such a way that if only a single link breaks down, a series of collapses will occur. This has happened during the pandemic.
When China was hit by the pandemic, two-third of its economy stopped working, consequently, the world witnessed a sharp decline in the global supply. The same happened when the pandemic was at its peak in the West. In this way, the worst impact on the global economy was in the form of a major recession, depriving people of employment, and increasing poverty, across the world as no nation could remain unaffected.
When such pandemics exploded at a place somewhere before the era of Globalization, other parts of the world were unaffected economically. Another point of pondering is the fact that in the case of China it is not because of the involvement of Chinese firms in the rest of the world but because global companies have some of their production lines installed in China. Globalization lets it happen. This is well explained by famous sociologist Anthony Giddens, who says that it is the major characteristic of Globalization that distant localities are linked with each other in such a way that one event at a place shapes events at other places.
Notice that if it is thought that virus pandemics erupt once in a lifetime and therefore most of the time Globalization will be dominating and decisive, it is not the case. The future of Globalization was at stake in the recent crisis when both the economic giants China and the USA engaged in a trade dispute because of which world economy faced contraction in its GDP which would have been turned into a global economic recession if the trade war continued.
Like pandemic exposed the vulnerability in the economic structure of Globalization, so it did by revealing the dangers on the political front. In Globalization, governments were subjected to cooperation which reduced the political tensions between them, however, pandemic reactivated their political motives, which means that in case of an emergency governments failed to cooperate. Such a severe blame game was started when some countries lashed out at China, calling it responsible for the global spread of the pandemic, while China refused all accusations and blamed the US for politicizing the health crisis. The political tussle made faces at Globalization.
International and regional organizations which are the key aspects of Globalization failed too. The World Health Organization is the case in this regard that how it crumbled. It not only faced criticism but the US even withdrew its financial support from it. Likewise, other international and regional organizations could not maintain cooperation among nations. In this way, Globalization could not even handle the crisis adequately.
Globalization brags about free trade but now people are asking the question that what is the benefit of free trade if it cannot even function when it is needed the most. When there was more need for cooperation between governments, Globalization failed again and it was also exposed in the role of organizations. That’s why one may argue that the post-pandemic world would be the era of de-globalization and states would strive to gain more and more power as they do not want to rely only on Globalization anymore. Likewise, people are now more careful in their spending, while corporations are now more conscious about their dependence on Globalization, therefore, they are going for precautionary measures.
