Forum: Thinking Theoretically in Unsettled Times: COVID-19 and Beyond

Abstract

This collection of essays seeks to theorize the politics of the COVID-19 pandemic in international relations (IR). The contributions are driven by questions such as: How can theorizing help us understand these unsettled times? What kind of crisis is this? What shapes its politics? What remains the same and what has been unsettled or unsettling? In addressing such questions, each of the participants considers what we may already know about the pandemic as well as what might be ignored or missed. Collectively, the forum pushes at the interdisciplinary boundaries of IR theorizing itself and, in so doing, the participants hope to engender meaningful understandings of a world in crisis and encourage expansive ways of thinking about the times that lie beyond.

Introduction to the Special Issue—COVID-19, international relations, and security studies: Has the pandemic altered the study and practice of international security?

“…The result is that "in the COVID-19 crisis, the virus itself is ideologized and thereby removed from the scientific domain." (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1105. Specialists, politicians, scholars, and even virologists have thus lost authority and legitimacy, reifying ours as the age of post-truth or post-reality.…”

“…In another ISR forum dedicated to COVID-19, Sterling-Folker et al (2021) asked each author to theorize from different perspectives about the politics and implications of the pandemic, mainly, seeking to address how international relations theorizing helps to understand. It is clear that this forum specifically sought to determine what role theorizing has in the pandemic and to force the reader to wonder more generally about the role international relations and security studies have on policy and practice.…”

“…It is clear that this forum specifically sought to determine what role theorizing has in the pandemic and to force the reader to wonder more generally about the role international relations and security studies have on policy and practice. Immediately brought to the forefront in Freyberg-Inan’s contribution is that the internet, cyberspace, and especially user-generated content flooded the information domain concerning the pandemic (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1104). She argues this information flooding provided many differing narratives on the pandemic, but problematically, also allowed for public diversity on competing views concerning how to react to the pandemic, legitimating wide-ranging responses, complicating how to finally respond to the crises (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1105).…”

“…Immediately brought to the forefront in Freyberg-Inan’s contribution is that the internet, cyberspace, and especially user-generated content flooded the information domain concerning the pandemic (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1104). She argues this information flooding provided many differing narratives on the pandemic, but problematically, also allowed for public diversity on competing views concerning how to react to the pandemic, legitimating wide-ranging responses, complicating how to finally respond to the crises (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1105). In other words, the information space resulted in the equalization of all possible views and voices, from the practical to the irrational.…”

“…Specialists, politicians, scholars, and even virologists have thus lost authority and legitimacy, reifying ours as the age of post-truth or post-reality. Freyberg-Inan demonstrates just how much of a lasting effect the pandemic has on the world order: liberalism is in crisis, “not merely as a system of governance, but as a normative foundation of our civilization” (Sterling-Folker et al, 2021, p. 1105).…”