Liberal fatalism, COVID 19 and the politics of impossibility

Abstract

How liberal governments manage knowledge, ignorance, prediction and uncertainty has attracted increased attention across the social sciences. In this paper, we analyse the strategy and rhetoric of the UK government during the COVID-19 pandemic, with particular attention to the first half of 2020. We see the initial UK policy response – as well as its later legitimation – as a form of ‘politics of impossibility’, effecting political change through claims of incapacity or impotence. We argue this approach departs from the uses of knowledge and ignorance in both classical liberalism and neoliberalism, and suggests the emergence of a new, hybrid form of governance which can be dubbed liberal fatalism. We discuss the relevance of this new form of governance for political futures of an increasingly volatile world.

Keywords:

• liberal fatalism
• COVID-19
• strategic ignorance
• behavioural science
• UK government
• pandemics

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Su-ming Khoo who first suggested the formulation ‘liberal fatalism’ (we had earlier decided on ‘fatalistic liberalism’). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers of Economy and Society for constructive feedback on this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/nhs-fails-to-cope-with-bodies-in-flu-pandemic-test-8pnmdpdfx

2 https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage

3 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/coronavirus-covid-19-scientific-evidence-supporting-the-uk-government-response

4 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-science-chief-defends-uk-measures-criticism-herd-immunity

5 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-38-days-when-britain-sleepwalked-into-disaster-hq3b9tlgh

6 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52234061

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jana Bacevic

Jana Bacevic is an Assistant Professor at Durham University, Department of Sociology. Her work is in social theory, politics of knowledge, philosophy of science and the political economy of knowledge production. She has published extensively on the uses of scientific knowledge and evidence, the construction of epistemic authority and the intersection between moral, political and epistemological elements in knowledge production.

Linsey McGoey

Linsey McGoey is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, with expertise in social and political theory, and the epistemology of ignorance. She is the author of No such thing as a free gift: The Gates Foundation and the price of philanthropy (Verso) and The unknowers: How strategic ignorance rules the world (Bloomsbury).