International Relations in the Shadow of the COVID19: A Young Research Perspective
Corona Crisis and International Relations: Thoughts of Pupils and Research Students
Edited by Ofek Rimmer and Dr. Galia Press-Bar Nathan
The corona virus, which was discovered somewhere in the city of Wuhan in China, spread within a few weeks to all over the world. As of this writing, more than three million people have been infected with the virus and more than 200,000 have died. But the shockwaves of the Corona virus outbreak have been felt well beyond public health. The world economy has been silenced, trade has stopped almost completely, aviation and tourism have been halted and millions of people are worried about their economic future. Governments around the world are facing public outrage and political instability, while others are taking advantage of the situation to make legislative changes and consolidate their rule. For now, it seems that swords have become shovels and that armies and military organizations have caught fire and are free to provide civilian assistance in their countries.
As citizens of the world, and in particular as international relations researchers, looking at the global crisis and its local derivatives, we experience the great uncertainty, but know one thing for sure, that the crisis will have far-reaching implications for world politics at its many levels. On the one hand, we must be patient and research modest in the face of this all-encompassing and multifaceted phenomenon. On the other hand, we feel the need and obligation to join the efforts of the scientific community and mobilize the knowledge from the field of international relations in order to try to give signs in the complex reality. In this file, graduate and graduate students in the Department of International Relations at the Hebrew University examine different dimensions of the corona crisis and illuminate different angles of it through the prism of world politics research.
The liberal world order
Dr. Doron Ella looks at the relationship between the US and China as reflected in their policies towards international institutions and organizations. To the position of influence and leadership of some of the organizations, while the US withdrew from its historic role.
Yuval Peleg reviews China's global aid efforts and argues that this is a strategy to strengthen China's influence and international status, especially in light of what appears to be an American failure. Moreover, in his view, this is the Chinese government's way to improve its image and maintain soft power, after being accused of being responsible for spreading the virus.
Inbar Noy and Naama Lutz are examining the functioning of international organizations in dealing with the crisis. Their on the day after the crisis.
Trust, identity, norms and cooperation
Tiran Goldstein and Inbar Pinko face the next big challenge stemming from the Corona crisis: reopening international borders to the movement of people. To overcome the mistrust that results from an individual's incentive to hide information and risk spreading the disease for their own benefit, they offer an international mechanism (Clean Health Aggregated Record Multi-pass, CHARM), which provides a kind of national health certificate that is essentially similar to a passport.
While it seems that each country is converging within itself, Jason Silverman chooses to look at the bright spots embodied in international collaborations to deal with the crisis. Trust and lead to cooperation in other areas as well.
Lee Amram-Eilat analyzes the role of social networks and their users as agents of norms and ideas for dealing with the crisis. According to her, social networks assisted in disseminating information between companies and countries, in providing distributed and diverse information to decision makers, in informing and educating the public quickly and efficiently and in disseminating original ideas to strengthen social resilience (singing the balconies).
Abir Gitlin and Amit Libson want to argue that the corona crisis is not only a health crisis that threatens the physical security of the citizens of the world, but also a social crisis that undermines the foundations of identity security (ontological). Thus, the social understandings surrounding the essence of the state and its role are challenged and re-examined in the face of the crisis, in a way that contributes to increasing anxiety and existential concerns around the world.
Israel, the Middle East and Africa
Dr. Noa Levy, Dr. Itamar Dubinsky and Niasha Veranda turn the spotlight on the effects of the crisis on youth in Africa. While the fact that African society is quite young gives an advantage to the continent in the face of an epidemic that mainly affects adults, African youth themselves are even more challenged: unemployment, dropout, distance learning that discriminates between classes, street life and a tendency to commit crimes.
Ron Deutsch raises the question of the impact of the crisis on the stability of regimes in the Middle East. It points to a number of factors that may serve as indicators of the deterioration of political structures in the region, and therefore worth noting: mortality rates, rising prices (especially of basic products), unemployment levels and the mood of clerics - often used as agents of change.
Ofek Rimmer discusses the question of the responsibility of the Israeli intelligence community to monitor threats and warn of outbreaks of non-security or military crises. According to him, the fact that in Israel there was no discussion at all on the question of intelligence responsibility for surprise necessitates a redefinition of the concept of national security, which will also address economic, environmental and health issues, and thus lead to pluralism of intelligence issues.