Covid-19 and the Global Political Economy
Crises in the 21st Century
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Book Description
Covid-19 and the Global Political Economy investigates and explores how far and in what ways the Covid-19 pandemic is challenging, restructuring, and perhaps remaking aspects of the global political economy.
Since the 1970s, neoliberal capitalism has been the guiding principle of global development: fiscal discipline, privatisations, deregulation, the liberalisation of trade and investment regimes, and lower corporate and wealth taxation. But, after Covid-19, will these trends continue, particularly when states are continuing to struggle with overcoming the pandemic and violating one of neoliberalism’s key principles: balanced budgets? The pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global political economy, and it can be argued that the intensification of global trade, tourism, and finance over the past 30 years has facilitated the spread of infectious diseases such as Covid-19. Therefore, economies in lockdown, jittery markets, and massive government spending have sparked interest in potentially re-evaluating certain features of the global political economy. This volume brings together leading and upcoming critical scholars in international relations and international political economy to provide novel, timely, and innovative research on how the Covid-19 pandemic is impacting (and will continue to impact) the global economy in important dimensions, including state fiscal policy, monetary policy, the accumulation of debt, health and social reproduction, and the future of austerity and the fate of neoliberalism.
This book will be of great interest to students, scholars, and experts in international relations and international political economy, as well as history, anthropology, political science, sociology, cultural studies, economics, development studies, and human geography.
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Covid-19 Pandemic, International Political Economy and Social Reproduction
Matt Dow and Tim Di Muzio
Part I: Global Power, Inequality, and Climate Change
1 "A Once in a Lifetime Opportunity": Covid-19 in the Age of Finance
Richard H. Robbins
2 The Billionaire Boom: Capital as Power and the Distribution of Wealth
Natasha Popcevski
3 Neoliberalism, Race, and Ignorance in an Era of Covid-19
Dan Bousfield
4 Covid-19: Decarbonization under Duress
Adam Lucas
5 Engineering the Coronaverse: The Wild, Wild Sovereignty of Big Meat in the Age of the Corporate State
Sandy Smith-Nonini
Part II: Global Health, Social Care and Reproduction during the Covid-19 Pandemic
6 Global Health, Covid-19, and the Future of Neoliberalism
Dillon Wamsley and Solomon Benatar
7 From Operation Warp Speed to TRIPS: Vaccines as Assets
Tatiana Andersen
8 Covid-19 and the Economy of Care: Disability and Aged Care Services into the Future
Laura Davy and Helen Dickinson
Part III: The Future of Production, Money, Energy and Food Regimes
9 Covid-19 and the Future of Work: Continuity and Change in Workplace Precarity
Tom Barnes, Dani Cotton and Rakesh Kumar
10 MMT, the Pandemic and the Fiscal Deficit Fright
Tim Di Muzio
11 Carbon Capitalism, the Social Forces of Annihilation, and the Future of Energy
Matt Dow
12 Covid-19 and the Future of Food
Philip McMichael
Conclusion: The Ongoing Covid-19 Dystopia: A Crossroads for Critical IPE and Humanity
Tim Di Muzio and Matt Dow
Editor(s)
Biography
Tim Di Muzio is Associate Professor in International Relations and Political Economy at the University of Wollongong, Australia and Associate at the Centre for Advanced International Relations Theory at the University of Sussex, UK. His research examines economic inequality, energy policy, and global debt and money.
Matt Dow received his PhD in Political Science in 2019 from York University, Canada. His research examines fossil fuels, the global monetary and debt system, settler colonialism, and climate change.