Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a new climate of uncertainty which is fuelling protectionism and
playing into nationalist narratives. The ideas of globalization and global governance are adapting as states
race to protect their citizens and their own vulnerabilities. The disruption afflicting the modern world
combines a deadly and highly infectious virus, a global economic recession, the erosion of global
governance and the failure to coordinate a coordinate global response. The world order looks to defend
the institution of democracy, while respecting the health and security of nations. The question remains
can global governance survive the Covid-19 pandemic, or will a new world order emerge? This paper will
argue that the Covid-19 crisis has turned into a moment of truth, in which the presumptions, prejudices
and processes of the post-Cold War era were exposed and continue to faulter. The Covid-19 pandemic has
accelerated long-term changes and exposed some underlying truths about our societies and pattern of
international relations, that the system is indeed already broken. No new global and regional balance of
power will emerge because of the pandemic. Trends that have already been visible for some time will
emerge with greater clarity.

International Politics, Forms of Globalization and Theories of Global Governance

The current situation of the Covid-19 crisis is an example in which elements of sovereignty,
discipline, biopower and biopolitics, and governmentality are combined in uneven rapidly shifting ways.
Biopower is an important concept to discuss when looking at the effect of pandemics and the current
health crisis. Biopower can provide justification to an end for countries and states as a form of
government control, going beyond the typical government actions used to control the actions of society,
biopower creates a sense of fear and division among societal members. As Inda (2002) says the logic
behind Foucault’s idea of biopower is to maintain the “welfare of the population, the improvement of its
condition, the increase of its wealth, longevity, health, etc.” (p.99) and a perceived overreaching
imperative to keep as many people alive as possible by what ever means necessary, with tools of state
sovereignty. The Covid-19 crisis has challenged official responsibility for how decisions are made as a
result of either disciplinary power or biopower. As Eckes (2020) points out, the rule of experts. which in
the context of Covid-19 largely means epidemiologists and virologists, these experts have frequently been
invoked as unquestioned authorities whose advice the government is “merely following” despite the fact
that the experts themselves have routinely emphasized the limits of their own knowledge, and as the
pandemic has unfolded it has increasingly become “clear that the expertise does not exist” (Ecks 2020).
Therefore, government decisions or lack of has created a sense of danger constituted by the narrative of
fighting the pandemic served in imposing security justifications and exception measures, as well as
deepening the “structural reforms” that neoliberal governments consider as their sole task to carry out.
(Dias & Deluchy, 2020) argue that is with the spreading of the COVID-19 “invisible enemy,” the
governed are once again urged to adhere to a governmentality that promotes obedience and voluntary
servitude, It is this war that seeks to be both brought about and made invisible by the governmental
strategies. Although, as individuals begin and have navigated the pandemic many have started to question
the impact and role of the state and global institutions in addressing the issues caused as a result of the
pandemic.

Individual Sovereignty during a Pandemic

State representatives, intergovernmental organizations, nongovernmental organizations global

governing institutions often express differing views on how individual sovereignty should be protected
especially during a unprecedent global health crisis. Over the course of the last year there have been many
appeals to ‘individual soverighnty’ brought together by a wide range of political actors across the world,
united in their rejection of face masks, ‘social distancing’, and other forms of state-imposed regulation of
behavior and mobility. To ensure compliance with COVID-19 measures countries have sought to appeal
to the masses though the idea individual responsibility to protect their fellow citizens and health care
systems from collapse. Opposition to state efforts to govern the spread of the pandemic has created,
indeed, the most unlikely of coalitions, from anarchists and natural health proponents to anti-vaxxers and
libertarians of all stripes (from the radical-ecological to the right-nativist), all mobilizing around a
purported defense of ‘personal freedoms’ and ‘individual rights’ against the sovereign power of states
(Biakasiewicz &Eckes, 2020, p.1) Protesters believe that their, ‘fundamental rights’ connote universal
moral claims. They are understood as something that pertains to individuals, and that is actionable by
individuals, but this is not always the case. As Biakasiewicz &Eckes (2020 indicate they are envisioned
as being capable of transcending and restricting, if needed, the political power of the state. Within modern
constitutional democratic states, individual autonomy is expressed and protected through fundamental
rights, such as the right to gather, the right to religion etc., have a double-edged relationship with
sovereignty. On the one hand, fundamental rights are, in their specific codified form, an expression of a
sovereign choice; on the other hand, they protect individual liberty and autonomy (or self-rule) and limit
the exercise of sovereignty. Individual autonomy is thus necessary to create the conditions of the very
collective self-rule or ‘collective autonomy’ that is the essence of sovereignty (Biakasiewicz &Eckes,
2020, p.2)

Defending Democracy amongst a Global Pandemic

 Good governance nationally and on a global scale is needed to prepare for and respond to a
pandemic, both in the initial stages and as evidence grows on the efficacy of different preventative
measures. According to Lee Jong-Wook, former Director-General of the World Health Organization
(WHO), pandemics do not respect international borders. Therefore, they have the potential to weaken
many societies, political systems, and economies simultaneously (Davies, 2013, p.32) The global threat
posed by pandemics requires a coordinated a global approach to security as the rapid transmission of
disease in a globalized world means that capacity failures in any member state could place any other state
or society in peril. It is under this premise, Flood, MacDonnell, Phillipott, Theriault and Ventapurmam
(2020) argue that global governance requires clear lines of responsibility about which orders of
government and other institutions or actors will do what and when. Particularly in the early part of a
pandemic, there is little time for the usual rhythm of democracy and thus clear lines, or responsibility are
even more essential (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020, p.23) Coordination
among countries is needed to limit the spread of infectious diseases, improve their effects, and develop
potential treatments. It requires recognition that our future is co-determined with others, and to seize the
benefits of our interconnectedness within and across countries (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault,
Ventatapuram, 2020, p.27)

It is argued and widely accepted that equity is seen as the central component to global health and
should be the guiding principle to improve the health and lives of all people around the world. Yet we
have witnessed and continue to seethe challenges of coping with the Covid-19 pandemic that has caused
some countries to become more isolationist as they seek to protect their citizens and economies (Bradley
& Helfer, 2020, p. 570) The current global response to COVID-19 has been mostly inward looking and
nationalistic, calls this premise into question. The global health governance response to the COVID-19
pandemic has been largely modelled from the perspective of High-Income Countries without due
consideration for how and whether it provides a feasible parallel strategy for Low Income Countries
(Eyawo & Viens, 2020). As low- and middle-income countries continue to develop, they are often
plagued with inadequate health systems, lack of resources, and strong governing systems.

Governments have responded by engaging in abuses of power, silencing their critics, and weakening
or shuttering important institutions, often undermining the very systems of accountability needed to
protect public health. Which is argued by Repucci & Slipowitz (2020) who state that the research strongly
supports the hypothesis that the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating the 14 years of consecutive decline
in freedom. Further emphasizing, not only has democracy weakened in 80 countries, but the problem is
particularly acute in struggling democracies and highly repressive state, in other words, settings that
already had weak safeguards against abuse of power are suffering the most. The findings illustrate the
breadth and depth of the assault on democracy. As one respondent on Cambodia put it, “The government
took coronavirus as the opportunity to demolish democratic space.” p.1. “Coronavirus was used as an
excuse for the already oppressive government to do things that it has long planned to do, but had not been
able to.”(Repucci & Slipowitz, 2020, p.3)

The crisis of democratic governance begun long before the pandemic as seen in Russia, China and
other countries, but has been heightened now more than ever and is likely to continue after the health
crisis recedes, as the laws and norms being implemented across the globe now will be difficult to reverse.
The pandemic has heightened the need to defend democracy, not as a subsidiary component of
international development assistance, but as the backbone of long-term international development
strategy, after more than three decades of a sustained international effort to back the emergence of
inclusive democracy (Cormier, Casas-Zamora, 2020). How countries and leaders respond now during and
after the crisis will ultimately determine the extent to which democracy in many parts of the world is
maintained or diminishes over time. The inevitability of change is disguised by powerful, political,
nosiness, and media voices that call to “reopen the economy” and to return to “normality” swiftly. With
this statement, Swift (2020) argues that this is a result of those that wish to maintain their powerful
positions in a post pandemic system. Which corresponds with the conclusion made by experts surveyed
in (Repucci & Slipowitz’s (2020) study that found 64 percent, agreed that the impact of COVID-19 on
democracy and human rights in their country of focus will be mostly negative over the next three to five
years. As witnessed in China’s experience over the past nine months could prove a dystopian model for
the future: increased nationalist and propagandistic rhetoric at home to drown out calls for transparency
and accountability, enhanced and innovative technological surveillance, crackdowns on individuals
within and outside the country who share information that contradicts regime messaging, and the
persecution of potential critics among the domestic elite (Repucci & Slipowitz, 2020, p.2).

The idea of governments is using the pandemic as a means exert their power and will to advance their
agendas, calls in to question the role of global governance and the role of democracy, is the system as
strong as some may believe or exposing vulnerabilities that have not been seen before. Adkins and Smith
(2020) justify this conclusion, by showing what is currently happening in Tanzania, Burundi and
Madagascar as a result of the global pandemic is to authoritarian ideology. “Tanzania is not the only
country where the pandemic is meeting rising authoritarianism. Magufuli’s denials of the seriousness of
the COVID-19 pandemic and the lack of transparency in the collection and sharing of data on rates of
infections and deaths have raised concerns. A strikingly similar situation has unfolded in Burundi, where
the country’s president is thought to have died from COVID-19 after months of official denials about the
disease’s seriousness. The government even encouraged citizens to attend religious services and other
large gatherings in the country. In Madagascar, too, the country’s authoritarian president has been dogged
by criticism, including from the WHO, about his government’s response, or lack thereof, which has
featured the promotion and distribution—including to Tanzania—of an unproven “herbal cure.” These
examples show that without a global “overreaching” system or a unified approach, state actors that were
slowly moving towards democracy may be reverting to previous models of governance.

Role of Global Institutions in global governance within Pandemics

The World Health Organization has a major role to play in building trust and confidence in global
initiatives and responses to emergency threats and concerns. Davies (2013) insists, that the wider United
Nations system, especially bodies such as the Peacebuilding Commission and agencies such as the United
Nations Development Programme and United Nations Children’s Fund, have a supporting role to play in
helping states build the technical capacities needed to deliver the International Health Regulations, while
the marriage of security and health has helped build the necessary global political will to implement the
International Health Regulations, the institutional, technical, and political challenges in achieving this
goal cannot be overstated (Davies, 2013, p.33) Institutional power is embedded in informal and formal
rules and decision-making authority. Until its decline in the 1990s, the WHO’s power reflected its ability
to coordinate the views of health experts, its representation from most countries in the world (all with
equal voting rights), its financial resources (Patterson & Clark, 2020. p.429) and its ability to coordinate
how members states should respond to infectious disease outbreaks, to take “effective account of the
threat posed by the international spread of new and re-emerging diseases” (Davies, 2013, p.32) Instead,
the response has been haphazard, and the authority of WHO and the UN Security Council are hobbled by
disagreements between the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and WHO (Halabi & Wilson,
2020, p.534) highlighting the premise that the system was already broken long before the Covid-19
pandemic began as international governing bodies were already fragile at best as a result of current
international relations amongst states.

When the Coronavirus was first detected, the WHO began providing clear messaging that
countries should test, isolate, trace, treat, and countries worldwide should began shutting down their
borders (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020, p.15) However, because of their
limited scope of compulsory and institutional power they were not able to enforce their recommendations,
and countries started to respond unitarily. As China and the United Sates were one for the first to detect
the coronavirus, the WHO was unable to compel other countries to act to curtail the virus. Which was the
case as Italy could not make European Union countries share health supplies, and the United States could
not force China to share data on early cases. Similarly, because the WHO has no enforcement mechanism
to punish its members for health actions (or inactions) thus, must rely on diplomacy in order to impose its
recommendations. Similarly, the WHO’s institutional power was limited, even though the International
Health Regulations obligate countries to notify the WHO about emergent health threats to facilitate a
coordinated international response (Patterson & Clark, 2020. p.429-430) as infections began to spread in
various countries, China and the WHO became targets of ferocious criticism, accused of colluding in their
failure to control the pandemic early on (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020,
p.10) followed by calls for international sanctions, withdrawal of contributions to WHO’s work, and
multilateral calls for investigations into the pandemic’s origins (Halabi & Wilson, 2020, p.533)

The weakness of compulsory, institutional, and epistemic power explains the failure of the WHO and
individual countries to stop COVID-19, while productive and structural power undergird responses. The
pandemic initially appears to have given proponents of isolationism and unilateralism the upper hand as
they argue that the economic and human costs of COVID-19 prove global health governance’s failure
(Patterson & Clark, 2020. p.431) Alvarez (2020) further argues that there were five reasons for the
WHO’s failures when it came to its response to the pandemic:

1. An inability to overcome its state-centered roots.

2. Over reliance on soft law techniques
3. Inflexible “emergency” declarations
4. An absence of institutionalized mechanisms for cross-regime collaboration.
5. and the blind spots and pathologies that arise when experts become bureaucrats.

As a result of these problems, the WHO has been plagued with notion that they were unwilling to criticize
important member states, continue to provide mixed messaging in their reporting, their reluctance to
initially declare a public health emergency of international concern and lack of transparency undermining
its core principles as a global governance organization. Bradley and Helfer (2020) provide a solution on
how The WHO could address these problems by embracing its authority to pressure member states to
comply with the International Health Regulations; adopting structural reforms that would facilitate
collaboration with human rights regimes; giving the organization more independence from states; and
expanding its expertise beyond public health, particularly in the legal sphere. (p. 573)

Security

Pandemics are for the most part disease outbreaks that become widespread because of the spread
of human-to-human infection. Beyond the debilitating, sometimes fatal, consequences for those directly
affected, pandemics have a range of negative social, economic, and political consequences. These tend to
be greater where the pandemic is a novel pathogen, has a high mortality and/or hospitalization rate and is
easily spread (Davies, 2013, p.32) The pandemic is a stark reminder of the fragility of democratic
governance, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. Governments in both new and established
democracies have quickly dispensed with normal procedures to respond to the pandemic. While there is
no doubt that governments must respond quickly in a public health crisis, some balance must be found
between the need for dispatch and the need for considered and accountable policy responses (Flood,
MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020, p.10) COVID-19 has exposed and created
vulnerabilities that follow the fault lines of pre-existing structural inequities. Indeed, it is difficult to
process all the rapid and sweeping changes to our lives, social interactions, government functioning, and
global relations that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused, even now as the virus continues flourish more
than one year after the first confirmed case with no signs of slowing down. But the devastation it has and
is producing, and the unequal distribution of harms within and across countries, demands global
responses to pandemic control that prioritize equity (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault,
Ventatapuram, 2020,p.1)

There have been very different political responses to COVID-19 across countries. At one end of
the spectrum are countries that have implemented very restrictive measures such as lockdowns and
curfews to restrict interactions and movements of people. Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott, Theriault &
Ventatapuram, (2020), show this polarizing difference in polices and actions taken to curb the spread of
Covid-19. At one end of the spectrum are countries that have implemented very restrictive measures, with
China setting a global precedent, instituting what was then the largest quarantine in world history of the
Wuhan region’s sixty million people. This has since been eclipsed as other countries have locked down to
a greater or lesser degree. At the other end of the spectrum, among Western countries, Sweden stands out
for its embrace of a less restrictive approach that some media have dubbed “anti-lockdown.” Sweden’s
chief epidemiologist pursued a strategy of mitigation: allow the virus to spread slowly without
overwhelming the health system, without recourse to harsh social isolation restrictions, and attempt to
shield the most vulnerable (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020, p.7). Many of
the virus’s hot spots in high-income countries include long-term care homes, prisons, immigration
detention centres, and slaughterhouses, among others, are spaces of acute vulnerability because they are
sites of long-standing structural inequalities (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram,
2020, p.10)

Initially, leaders framed COVID-19 as an existential threat to national security, with the response
being a ‘war,’ the virus being an ‘enemy,’ and healthcare workers termed ‘warriors.’ This frame
mobilized individuals to engage in for behaviors like social distancing, but it also enabled some
governments to justify human rights abuses, and it contributed to panic-buying, stock selloffs, risking
healthcare workers’ lives without adequate protective equipment, and demonizing and scapegoating
people believed to carry the virus like Asian-Americans (Patterson & Clark, 2020. p.430) As national
security began to be threatened, countries with substantial industrial power increased production of
masks, respirators, and other medical supplies. Countries with little industrial capacity, in contrast, had
less ability to protect and treat their citizens, and thus, had to depend on donor aid (Patterson & Clark,
2020. p.430) this created unprecedented uncertainty amongst global supply chains, that should have been
more prepared. This calls into question what role the World Trade Organization has when it comes to
ensuring the global supply chain is not hindered by unforeseen emergencies. Bradley & Helfer (2020)
emphasize that according to the WTO rules and regulations states can only regulate supply chains during
pandemics and cannot act more systemically prior to a crisis. These rules place WTO members in a
dilemma, they must either wait for a crisis before addressing supply chain risks or go against WTO rules
to pre-emptively protect the supply chains. They instead propose that free trade agreements should be
reformed to have stronger rules of origin and to provide policy space for members to manage critical
supply chain risks. (In Bradley & Helfer, 2020, p. 574

Ethics and the Covid Vaccine

When it comes to Covid-19 and the global pandemic, the quickest way out is through mass vaccination
efforts, which ultimately is going to help in building immunity quickly and significantly reduce the socio-
economic costs of the pandemic and the erosion of democratic institutions and global governance. As
Gupta and Baru (2020) point out, its with this argument that provides a sound economic rationale for fast-
tracking COVID-19 vaccine trials, and the unprecedented scale of the global pandemic unparalleled in
human history, has brought forward a global mandate for hastening the process of vaccine discovery.
However, both the science and the public policies around vaccines are fraught with uncertainties and
ethical concerns. The COVID-19 pandemic itself has been marked by uncertainties across multiple
domains, nature of the virus, alternative treatment options, clinical outcomes, and prevention methods
(Gupta & Baru, 2020, p. 153) Creating and becoming the subject of various ethical controversies in
respect to the Covid-19 vaccine, around how it is developed, how are the trails being conducted due to its
fast tracking, and the safety guidelines and mandates for wide scale use. Further, given that globally
several large pharmaceutical companies have partnered with governments and researchers, this raises
concerns about the ethics in production, pricing and distribution. (Gupta &Baru, 2020, p. 154)

Like never, before the COVID-19 vaccine distributional issues may get intertwined with global
politics and governance, making strategizing an important tool at the vaccine allocation stage. With many
countries tasked with protecting their own but at the mercy at the greater global community. The
pandemic has already exposed the fault lines in terms of accessibility and availability of health services
across and within countries. (Gupta &Baru, 2020, p. 154) In these circumstances, the questions around
who gets the vaccine, how and at what cost cannot be addressed in real time but would require months of
advanced planning and structures that would have to be put in place before the vaccines become
available. However, this is not the case as witnessed in what is currently happening around the world as
countries race to procure vaccines for their own, options and moves need to be thought out it in advance
to avoid troubleshooting in real time, which can result in imperfect decision-making to the detriment of
public welfare. As serious inequities exist in access to health services, and how vaccines are distributed
based on different sets of parameters of ethics and access even though countries have signed binding
contracts with manufacturers. This has become evident in the case of India, that has restricted Oxford-
AstraZenca vaccine exports triggering set backs and vaccination efforts in many other countries. As
reported in the New York Times, the government of India is now holding back nearly all of the 2.4
million doses that the Serum Institute of India, the private company that is one of the world’s
largest producers of the AstraZeneca vaccine, makes each day, India is drawing up its gates as a second
wave of infections hits home, holding tight to a vaccine that it didn’t develop but that is being produced in
huge quantities on its soil (Gentleman, Scmall & Mashall, 2021) highlighting further perpetrating the idea

of vaccine nationalism.

The World Health Organization plays a role an essential role in the global governance of world health
and disease, responsible for setting international standards and coordination of multiple actors towards
global goals, can and should sets rules and guidelines around vaccines that need to be followed, however
these are not policies and guidelines are not enforceable with many countries choosing to ignore them and
act in their own interests instead. The uncertainty around global public health policy has increased due to
the withdrawal of the USA from the WHO, only until recently have to have rejoined the global
organization. Contradicting the critical need for equity and transparency (Gupta &Baru, 2020, p. 154)
Without a plan for how to ensure equitable worldwide distribution of any vaccine, the status quo is
inequitable distribution both within and among countries. There is precedent for this concern: during the
2009 influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, wealthy countries purchased nearly all doses of the vaccine
(Nickerson & Herder, 2020, p.599). On May 4, 2021 , the G-20 countries, except the U.S. and Russia,
joined major philanthropists to raise nearly €8 billion (approximately C$12.3 billion) for research and
development of diagnostics, therapies, and vaccines, promising these would all be public goods, and
fairly distributed (Flood, MacDonnell, Phllipott. Theriault, Ventatapuram, 2020, p.17)

Nationalizing vaccine production is key to help realize a globally accessible COVID-19 vaccine,
one that cannot devolve into vaccine nationalism and it protected by the global governing structures, as
demonstrated by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Global Alliance for
Vaccines and Immunizations (GAVI) and the WHO launching COVAX to ensure equitable access to
COVID-19 vaccines (Gupta, Baru, 2020, p.154) to the developing world, funded by the high-income
countries. While procuring vaccines for Canadians, the Canadian government joined the COVAX
initiative, by investing $440 million, and committing an additional $75 million recently. Half of the
original $440 million secured doses for Canadians, and the other half is directed toward providing doses
for 92 countries that need help securing vaccines, as reported by Zimonjic and Cullen in March 2021. In
theory securing doses by any means necessary plays into the idea of vaccine nationalism and
protectionism as the global vaccine supply remains volatile. The article points out that Canada has been
criticized for saying it will take vaccine doses from COVAX, despite having signed supply contracts that
would ensure each Canadian could be vaccinated ten times over. (Zimonjic & Cullen, 2021).

Solutions and Implications

With the ongoing disruptions of the current outbreak and the fear of its recurrence make a return
to our previous normality highly unlikely. Past pandemics, like the Black Death or the Spanish Flu
brought about huge shifts in class relations and international power balances, similarly to what is and will
occur because of the Covid-19 pandemic (Swift, 2020) Even if society does somehow recover, it cannot
and will not look the same as it did before. As global leadership began to change in early states of the
pandemic as a result of the lack of leadership from the United States, Beijing moved quickly and adeptly
to take advantage of the opening, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic
response. As Campbell & Doshi (2020) point out China is working to tout its own system, provide
material assistance to other countries, and even organize other governments enhancing its role as a global
leader.

Billions of lives will be completely changed. The trauma of abuse and other serious interpersonal
harms will remain, there may be a recovery, but there is no going back (Thom, 2020) As global leadership
began to change in early states of the pandemic as a result of the lack of leadership from the United
States, Beijing moved quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening, filling the vacuum to
position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. As Campbell & Doshi (2020) point out China is
working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to other countries, and even organize other
governments enhancing its role as a global leader.

The Covid pandemic has created an opportunity like never to fix a system that was already
broken as Eyawo & Viens (2020) argue that we now have chance the reset the structure, function, and
aims of global health governance. We should take this opportunity to reinvigorate and re-establish an
approach to global health governance with a true central focus on equity and contesting the status quo,
forcing us to re-evaluate every aspect of personal and political lives (Thom, 2020). There are a few ways
within the global governance of COVID-19 response and global health governance more generally to
bring equity back as a central component. First, we need to strengthen collective action and global
cooperation to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. Secondly, we need to reduce the
dominant focus on individual responsibility for health and focus on how structural factors act as social
determinants of health. Third, we need to enhance coordination of response activities so that the actions
of high-income countries do not prevent the ability of low middle-income countries to promote health and
reduce health inequities, such as creating a global distribution guide on affordable vaccines for everyone
regardless of income. Lastly, high income countries should not be completely self-protectionist in
orientation when responding to pandemics.

International Relations theory insists on the anarchical nature of the international system, yet
beyond the absence of a formal world government, the international system is almost entirely ordered and
dominated by the will of more powerful states. Institutions like the IMF, WTO and WHO help govern by
enforcing and promoting the ideas of the Westphalian State. Poorer, weaker states often have no choice
but to accept the terms and conditions of these institutions as they do not have the same equal standing, as
powerful western countries do, instead they are at the mercy of others as shown through the rollout of
vaccines. The current global governing system is broken exasperated and accelerated by the Covid-19
pandemic, exposing its vulnerabilities and weakness, countries that have once fought for world order now
seek protectionist and nationalist policies to protect their own as the lasting effects of the pandemic
remain to be seen.