The Securitization Trend in World Politics amidst the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic, has exposed a deep standing malice as operative in world politics, since the post-2008 Global Financial Crisis, which alludes to the fact that, an ‘economic recession leads to a democratic recession’. During the course of 2020, the major G-7 nations along with their counterparts in the Global South, as manifested in the BRICS grouping and several prominent regional stratagems, have been using various terms like ‘national security’ and ‘existential threat’, to define their respective Covid-19 response, leading to a high degree of ‘securitisation’, as expounded by Barry Buzan and other scholars. Such a war mongering rhetoric, as directed against the so-called ‘invisible enemy’, has resulted in a severe depletion of democratic rights on an international scale, coupled with a high degree of surveillance, to keep in check the seditious detractors, who constitute the ‘other’ to the overarching and un-inhibiting statist war cry. 

Despite assuming a wide ranging spatial and temporal separation, there has been a marked resonance in the ways in which, statesmen of various nations have tried to rally their populace, by making constant references to the popular public appeals of the Great Wars, the Marshall Plan, the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967, or in case of India, a ‘call to alms’ as manifested in the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to the general masses, to contribute generously to the PM-CARES Fund, to help the ‘Covid warriors’, drawing analogies from the Mahabharata itself. There has been a lot of tradeoffs, between societal activities blessed with an ‘essential’ importance, as manifested in the prioritization of ‘lives over livelihoods’, highlighting the role of morale building, ideological prowess and ethical upkeep, in the general scheme of administrative affairs. The renewed focus upon the expectant ‘duties of the state’, has put statesmen of some of the leading nations, remain distraught over the prospect of facing imminent public wrath, in the electoral process, based on their contingent pandemic response. States have always resorted to a select reading of the past, to build upon a much touted national myth. But the way in which, these assertions have been employed during a pandemic outbreak, has put to sharp relief two essential features, that are expected to define the post-Covid world order namely, a heightened call for ‘consolidation of power’, and a revamped approach towards rousing the dormant ‘nationalistic ethos’.

One of the endemic indications, which one stumbles upon, while analyzing Google search data, while trying to establish a correlation, between the preferences of pandemic news seekers, and the official pronouncements in relation to the same, as in health department pronouncements and statements of some leading politicians, is the focus on ‘war’, ‘enemy’ and ‘battle’, calling for the pooling in of all the statist resources, in an ‘extraordinary situation’, while shaping their respective pandemic response. It goes without saying, that such generalized proclamations of emergency, which is replete with previous historical allegories, if resorted to in a post-pandemic scenario, will inevitably contribute to democratic erosion itself, glossing over the malignant institutional decadence, which they are a characteristic of.

The pandemic was described as a ‘people’s war’, by the Chinese President Xi Jinping, while assigning the status of a ‘heroic city’ to Wuhan, the very epicenter of the outbreak itself. In the USA, President Trump, proclaimed himself as a ‘war-time President’, while calling for a concentrated institutional authority, glossing over the lopsided pharmaceutical drug regime, expensive insurance cover, and the disparaging influence of the pharmaceutical lobby, in the overall pandemic response. This trend was compounded, with his famous assertion of Sars-Cov-2 being a ‘Chinese virus’, resulting in American multilateral retreat, amid the ensuing electoral endgame, while projecting the Democrats as the weak ‘other’.

In Hungary, the Prime Minister Victor Orbán, was granted emergency powers by the ruling Fidesz party, to manage such a magnanimous disease outbreak, which sets a dangerous precedent, even following a potential return to ‘normalcy’. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, imposed a high degree of statist surveillance, whilst dissolving the Knesset, and incapacitating the courts, to impede his anti-corruption proceedings. In Poland, President Andrej Duda, had put the pandemic to full use, in garnering a heightened media coverage on account of his statist dispositions, while his rivals lamented the loss of public outreach in their stead, compounded with his urge to conduct the elections at an earlier date, to make use of his inflated media ratings. Some state leaders, like the South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, declared their own ‘mini wars’, while flagging off a strict public law abidance drive, in full military attire.

As India joined the ranks of the USA and Brazil, in terms of total number of Covid-19 cases, despite its lower per capita testing, the government indulged in an extensive crackdown over journalists, academics, student leaders and other civil society patrons, turning the scope of ‘pandemic control’ into a purported ‘political control’, under the aegis of the inherently problematic UAPA regime, terming the detractors as ‘anti-nationals’, as involved in seditious activities, while drawing the charges of incitement to violence and religious terrorism, garnering much international condemnation, whilst implementing one of the ‘stringent lockdowns’ in the world. 

In Putin’s Russia, the civil society has been ruing the creation of a ‘digital gulag’, by bringing the content of ‘fake information’, under the Kremlin’s exclusivist jurisdiction. Several leaders like Sheikh Hasina, have charted an onerous brief of a citizen’s ‘fundamental duties’ as to be strictly observed, during such troubled times, amid the ensuing exhumation, as marking the 50th anniversary of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Keeping such exigencies in mind, the expert Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations, has come up with its official Deliberation on the Prevention of Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty, calling on national governments to pay attention to the international human rights regime, while adjudicating the proportionality of health and security measures.

The inherent divergence between an overt drive for ‘securitisation’, and an actual national security threat, can be best highlighted if we take into account the divergent responses, which the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi displayed through his body language and choice of words, with regards to two separate exigencies. While the Prime Minister physically addressed the Indian jawans near the Galwan face-off site, which had the potential to implode into a major escalation with China, the same chief executive took recourse to the digital medium, while addressing the health workers and frontline personnel. He also laid an appeal to all the citizens, to become essential ‘Covid warriors’, by contributing wholeheartedly to the national effort against the dreaded disease, while disproportionately leaving the general masses of mitigating their internal logistical woes, compounded with a selective prioritization of resources, to meet the ‘national security’ threat.

Another field of exploration, is the apt usage of the war narrative calling for ‘personal sacrifices’, by staying at home and be content with the meagre financial resources at one’s disposal, for securing the overall ‘public good’, drawing on eerie parallels of past injustices as effectuated under this trope, as an allegorical corollary. As an essential manifestation of such an outlook, Britain has come up with a ‘war plan’, accompanying the creation of ‘battle rooms’, by roping in its four regional governments. France has come up with a military styled operative endeavor called ‘Resilience’, by roping in forces from conflict zones like Iraq, the USA has promulgated the Korean war-era Defense Production Act, Brazil has come up with a ‘war budget’, and the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for multilateral initiatives, based upon an effective battle strategy. 

Historically speaking, wars have been looked upon, as events marking a degree of fundamental change, in the domain of international politics in general. But the transformative potential of this contemporaneous ‘war spirit’, has been aptly summed by the Executive Director of UN Human Rights Watch, as suggestive of a potential return, to the post-9/11 heightened surveillance regime. Amartya Sen is also of the opinion that, instead of focusing upon an essentially hegemonic top-down approach, the best way of solving any grave social crisis is by strengthening the multifarious institutional mechanisms, which essentially exude a sense of heightened ‘state capacity’ in their stead. 

An essential beacon of optimism amid all this pale sounding war discourse, is South Korea, which is an apt representation of an ‘effective democratic ethos in operation’, during a societal exigency. Harping upon the efficient strategy of tracking, testing and treating, South Korea did not feel the need to implement a stringent lockdown regime, under the aegis of its adaptive Infectious Disease Control and Prevention Act. There was no official fudging of data, with regards to the actual Covid-19 statistics, and the politically educated citizenry’s manifested apprehensions, upon many of the statist assumptions, was not met with a seditious charge. Such an exuberant expression of governmental goodwill, was generously rewarded at the polls, as President Moon Jae In, plans to celebrate his third stint in office, by strengthening grassroots democracy and engaging public intellectuals and domain experts, in the overall pandemic response process. The National Assembly Polls, as conducted during April 2020, marked a high percentage of voter turnout, amid the overhanging Covid blues, and provides an important model for a post-Covid-19 multilateral world order, by harping upon the ‘hi-tech’, ‘collaborative’ and ‘liberal’ credentials, of a South Korean pandemic response.

Another illuminative prospect, is presented by New Zealand, which has displayed a non-protectionist response, to meet the challenge as mounted by the Covid-19 pandemic, in marked contrast to some of its G-7 partners in this regard. Backed by an efficient infrastructure and investment regime, the Kiwis generously contributed to the WHO’s overarching effort to secure adequate medical resources for its regional co-inhabitants. It has also helped some of its less fortunate Pacific Islands Neighbours, by providing effective inputs, as to ‘contingency planning’ and ‘risk communication measures’. This external show of solidarity, has been matched by the collective call, as given to all New Zealanders, by Prime Minister Jacinda Arden, to rally the nation’s institutional, human and natural resources, to effectively eliminate this public health exigency, with recent survey reports reflective of her wide-ranging public acceptance in this regard.  These two aforementioned novel examples, puts in sharp contrast, the importance which an overall ‘war narrative’ is set to play in the post-Covid international security framework, given that the supremacy of the state, is conditioned on an unhindered basis. 

The theory and practice of ‘securitisation’, was developed by Barry Buzan and his co-practitioners, to understand the political, economic, social, military and environmental milieu, which cropped up at the fag end of the Cold War. If we bring this conceptual framework into operation, in a Covid-19 induced 21st century world order, the question of ‘national security’, is found to be essentially re-designing the ‘social contract’, as observable between the citizenry and its representative government, the changing patterns of inter-governmental synergy, as well as the token importance which is being assigned, to a purported global rules-based regime. This so-called intra-national development, may have important consequences for the prospects of ‘international security’, in the ultimate extent, as the fine lines between democratic and dictatorial regimes get blurred, amid a multipolar statist foray. Whether such emotive appeals and popular gestures, are set to benefit the incumbents in power, so as to solidify their tumbling credentials, or it will indeed be the forerunner of a sincere public distress mitigation drive, hinged upon an effective display of ‘political will’, will depend upon the selective reading of the historical narratives, which the ‘powers to be’ employ, in mounting a 21st century mandated world pandemic response. 

Debayan Ghatak

 Intern, AGA

References

• Neha Dewan, “State Responses to COVID-19 and Implications for International Security,” Observer Research Foundation, September 3, 2020, https://www.orfonline.org/research/state-responses-to-covid19-and-implications-for-international-security/

• Beverly Barnhart and Jordan Beauregard, “Resource Security: The Context of National Security During and Beyond COVID-19,” Homeland Security Today. US, August 6, 2020, https://www.hstoday.us/subject-matter-areas/infrastructure-security/resource-security-the-context-of-national-security-during-and-beyond-covid-19/