Demonstrations around the world have more in common than you may think.
 | By Cybèle C. Greenberg Opinion Writing Fellow |
Seemingly, not much. In reality, quite a bit. |
Throughout the pandemic, popular resistance movements around the world have come in many different flavors. Times Opinion has sought to capture this diversity: In May, Adam Isacson wrote on the turmoil in Colombia set off by President Iván Duque's proposed tax overhaul. In July, Javier Corrales described the explosion of protests across Cuba in the face of worsening economic conditions. Pauline Bock profiled the violent French aversion to President Macron's "pass sanitaire" in August, and Tressie McMillan Cottom discussed American anti-vaccine rallies in September. |
At first glance, the chasm between the goals of the protesters in rich countries and those in poor ones can seem quite wide. The people of developing nations are desperate for greater and quicker access to the coronavirus vaccine, as loved ones continue to die in droves and families struggle to stay afloat financially. The more privileged but equally angry demonstrators of Western Europe, Australia and the United States tend to assemble to condemn vaccine mandates, which they see as government infringements on their civil liberties. |
A guest essay by Zachariah Mampilly, a professor of international relations and comparative politics at Baruch College, complicates the narrative that the "Covid protests" in developed and developing nations should be viewed as entirely disparate. Instead, he casts these demonstrations as symptoms of a single, central political crisis that has been a long time coming. |
The unhappy citizens of rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian countries, Mampilly argues, all share a loss of trust in their government and a fundamental disillusionment with the dominant neoliberal social contract. This contract, a vestige of Western post-Cold War politics, promised that markets would lead to international prosperity. The 2008 financial crisis exposed the fragility of this promise, and the pandemic is simply the last nail in the coffin. |
Where do we go from here? As protests inevitably continue, it's time for young, ambitious political scientists and economists to get creative and deliver the world a social contract that is both free and fair. |
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