Authoritarian Liberal Surveillance and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Download or read book Authoritarian Liberal Surveillance and the COVID-19 Pandemic written by Alexei Anisin and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-12-04 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From QR codes to stay-at-home orders and mask mandates, the pandemic posed intriguing questions about the nature of political power in a time that is increasingly being classified as marked by democratic erosion, backsliding, or populism, Through a multi-methodological analysis of datasets covering different characteristics of pandemic responses in 54 liberal democratic states, Authoritarian Liberal Surveillance and the COVID-19 Pandemic draws attention to a different set of processes and dynamics. By adopting the theoretical frameworks of authoritarian liberalism and surveillance capitalism, a new explanation of political, economic, and social outcomes that arose over the course of the pandemic is provided in a critical cross-national inquiry. Findings turn attention to a previously neglected set of factors that were behind the emergence of widespread illiberal practices. Many liberal democracies experienced a metamorphosis that arose out of the unfettered implementation of authoritarian liberal economic policy making which merged with previously embedded structures of surveillance capitalism.