Insular or multi-level anti-Covid-19 strategies, national lenses, and the question of mobility

We are writing late summer 2021. We are more than a year into daily reports of mass loss of life due to the SARS-Covid 19 virus (across the globe), everyday experiences of lockdown and crackdown (physical movement across borders) and changed social behaviour when meeting others. After all, we would assume our perception of (gendered and classed) care, individually and collectively, might have been impacted positively and changed for the better, too. The tireless discussion on gender pay-gaps and injustice with respect to care work – not resolved and not seriously tackled – are a reminder that capitalism is gendered, racialised and classed.

A friend told us when travelling from Amsterdam back to the UK, recently, Dutch airline KLM organised the UK border control in Schiphol. About six to eight additional members of staff (most of them female) were checking all passengers (most of them male). They had to check whether the passengers held the right documents of (a) negative PCR test, (b) passenger location form details logged online with the UK government, and – last not least – (c) booked and paid in advance the post-arrival quarantine test kit (containing very simple Covid-19 test to be taken by yourself on day 2 and day 8 after arrival). Well, in addition, in England you can opt for the ‘5 days test release package’ coming with extra costs of £ 100, we learned.

International travel never was that complicated, contested, and expensive as it is now – at least for western professionals. Well, it was and is, probably for those international migrants and refugees, who must pay fortunes to go from A to E, for example.

Here, and today, post-Brexit UK meets Covid pandemic. What is puzzling though is the complexity of regulations, contradictions and different measures taken by different governments to battle the virus. Niklas Luhman’s theorising of society (1995, 2000) comes to mind focusing on auto poetic systems, creating distinctive bubbles, and contributing to the feeling of chaos, torn apart directions of politics. While agreeing on the need of a consistent and coherent vaccination programme internationally we might accept, too, that this is the only chance to go back to smooth international travel and physical movement we have grown used to. That said biological science (virologists) have taken over the media interpretation of national data and receive public attention as gatekeepers to truth and comfort. We might wonder though what happens when the post-lockdown easing feeds another variation of Covid-virus or might trigger the next wave. It seems we have entered a vicious circle where an individual lack of everyday life planning causes a multiple dilemma with the cultural expectation of ‘keeping calm and carry on’.

We continue here with our reflection on power and cultural struggles in and across European countries shaping the way we read the health precautions of the day, how we are organised and looking after our and each other’s health, conditioned by social welfare systems and historical traditions (pathway dependency) of law abiding as rational morality. But still, where are the global sociologists mapping a different future for planet earth and humanity? If the responses to the Covid-19 pandemic foremost are local, national and – EUropean – what kind of public intervention do we need to counter lockdown fatigue, conspiracy theorists and the unsettling truth that class is racialised and social inequality closely linked to the risk of sickness and death?

The following papers tackle aspects that are not directly related to the power question arising through the governance of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis but add layers to our thinking about the moral authority of science, how far-right populism and online practices intersect, or how a global diffusion of laws create another angle of social complexity.

In their paper Right-wing populism and a worldview and online practice: Social media communication by ordinary citizens between ideology and lifestyles, Benjamin Krämer, Tobias Fernholz, Tobias Husung, Julia Meusel and Magdalen Voll take a fresh perspective into research on right-wing online practice. Instead of looking at politicians or other already influential figures, they look at how ordinary people perform right-wing political stances in online discussions. They find out that right-wing political topics are intertwined with a coherent set of social topics beyond the nominally political – creating a substantial political milieu.

Ali Qadir and Jukka Syväterä investigate the classical puzzle of the construction of the nature of the authority of science: outside of university practice, science is used as an argument and a justification. But where is its authority coming from in these cases? Their paper The moral authority of science: Evidence from parliamentary debates in seven countries looks at hundreds of debates during a 20-year period across the globe. Their main outcome is science in these debates works as a moral authority.

The next paper, Ibem Ebeturk’s Global diffusion of laws: The case of minimum age of marriage follows in the similar vein of epistemic governance and the world system theory. Ebeturk looks at the globalisation and institutionalisation of a specific policy, the 18-year minimum age for marriage. She analyses time-series data for 167 countries from 1965 to 2015 to examine what drives the adoption of the legislation. Norms concerning women and children, as well as presence of women legislators are found to be key explaining factors.

The issue’s final paper by Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky’s and Jan Krotky’s ‘A brother is more than a neighbour’: Symbolic boundary work in Czech migration discourse flips the usual way of looking at discourses around refugees: instead of looking at strategies of the anti-refugee activists, this paper looks at what pro-migration pro-refugee movements are doing to legitimize accepting refugees in Czechia. The findings are somewhat surprising: these activists use mainstream religious and security-related symbols as pro-refugee argument – essentially the same arguments that are used by the anti-refugee activists.

Alongside the citizenship and (im)migration nexus our primary concern is understanding the rise of the populist far-right of today and the way patterns of racisms and anti-Semitism frame extremist political views in different countries. Two of our book reviews discuss prominent contributions to the European and international debate. Petra Guasti’s review essay ‘Mosaic of the Contemporary Populist Radical Right’ critically engages with Samuel Salzborn’s book The modern state and its enemies: Democracy, nationalism and antisemitism (2020). Guasti scrutinises Salzborn’s understanding of the tension between (liberal) democracy and populism while bringing in, for example, Poppers’ approach of foregrounding the threat of enemies to an open society. Guasti argues that a truly liberal state is obliged to guarantee an open and anti-discriminatory society making the connection between liberal society and state crucial. When it comes to leading contributions to the debate on far-right populism Cas Mudde’s oeuvre is undeniable: Seongcheol Kim reviews Mudde’s recent book The far right today (2019). While appreciating the global scope of Mudde’s work, among others his reflection on what mainstreaming of the far-right might means in different countries or the role of media in channelling extremist views, Kim pinpoints, too, some of the weaker parts, for example Mudde’s continuing use of the concept of ‘nativism’. In the third and final book review, Martin Seelinger deliberates a companion of three volumes, devoted to the Transformation of citizenship (2017), co-edited by Juergen Mackert & Bryan S. Turner. If we consider the fragmentation of rights (‘citizenship’) as a consequence of processes of globalisation, but also European austerity measures it is worth noting that Seelinger captures a gap between English and German speaking (‘writing’) nations. Seelinger misses an engagement with ‘industrial citizenship’, amplified in a German notion of collective bargaining and collective labour rights, such as ‘Tarifautonomie’.

We end this editorial with a sad announcement of the recent passing of our journal's founding editor-in-chief, Ricca Edmondson (28 June 2021). Ricca will be dearly missed and remembered by the EJCPS community as a warm and devoted colleague and an encouraging, thorough and dedicated editor, as well as a powerhouse of sociological thought and wisdom. Her contribution to EJCPS cannot be overstated: our journal would never have gotten off the ground without her tireless work and matchless vision.

Our thoughts and condolences are with Ricca’s family and loved ones.