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This volume shows how post-neoliberal states and governing classes were unequal to the historical moment of COVID-19, learning little about how to adapt to wider political, socio-economic, and ecological challenges.
The COVID-19 pandemic challenged us to rethink how contemporary states navigate crises. But despite the extraordinary transformations of 2020–22, existing inequalities and power imbalances proved remarkably resilient. Bringing together critical perspectives, the book highlights how decision-making, leadership, and policy responses were inseparable from political power structures and societal contexts. The volume shows how crisis governance is actively contested, resisted, and shaped by social groups - and how social cleavages are either deepened or challenged in times of crisis.
Ewan Kerr is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow, UK. A political sociologist, his most recent articles have been published in Scottish Affairs, Critical Sociology, The Political Quarterly, and Economic and Industrial Democracy.
Emina Bužinkić is a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Development and International Relations, Croatia. Her work on refugee racialization, migrant labour, and transnational solidarities appears in various journals. She is a member of AGITATE! Unsettling Knowledges editorial collective.
James Foley is a senior lecturer in politics at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is the UK PI of the ENDURE project and the author of several books on Scottish and British politics in the context of debates about globalisation and nationalism.
List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors
1 Preface: The Organisation of Irresponsibility? COVID-19 and the Governance of State-Society Relations in Europe
Ewan Kerr, Emina Bužinkić and James Foley
2 The Management of Accountability: State Transformation and Class Politics in Scotland’s COVID-19 Response Ewan Kerr and James Foley
3 Entangled Crises and Anti-systemic Mobilisations in Germany
Christian Fröhlich and Mihai Varga
4 Protest Movements in Pandemics: Dynamics of 4C Social Responses to COVID-19 Governance in Poland Wojciech Ufel, Anna Cichecka and Mateusz Karolak
5 Governing through Crisis: Racialised Exception and Securitisation in Croatia’s COVID-19 Response Emina Bužinkić and Senada Šelo Šabić
6 The Struggle over Masks on Twitter: an AC/DT Approach to Finnish Pandemic Governance
Juha Koljonen, Kleber Carrilho, and Emilia Palonen
7 Bottom-Up Governance in Times of Crisis: Informal Practices and Migrant Agency in Germany’s Assyrian Community during COVID-19 Soner Barthoma
8 Managing Crises through Deepening Inequalities: the Neoliberal Labour Politics of the Turkish State during the COVID-19 Pandemic Erdem Damar
9 CODA: COVID-19 – a Neoliberal Pandemic
Alfredo Saad Filho
Index