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BY 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter Open Access September 4, 2021

Pathogenic Politics: Authoritarianism, Inequality, and Capitalism in the COVID-19 Crisis

  • Theodore Powers and Jeremy Rayner EMAIL logo

Abstract

We provide an introduction to this special issue on the politics of the COVID-19 pandemic, presenting some of the key findings and central arguments of the articles collected herein, and discussing their significance in relation to the broader political context of the pandemic. We address the roles of necropolitics and “necrosecurity”, pointing to their relationships to colonial and eugenicist histories, as well as some of the ways in which a globally-ascendant authoritarian populism contributed to the often-disastrous mismanagement of the pandemic. We consider how unequal structures of social and public obligation were reproduced to the detriment of lives and livelihoods, and the challenges facing institutions of protection, care, and social reproduction. Finally, we consider some of the ways in which the pandemic may have opened up avenues for more systemic transformations—for good or for ill.

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Received: 2021-06-28
Accepted: 2021-07-12
Published Online: 2021-09-04

© 2021 Theodore Powers et al., published by De Gruyter

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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