A few first thoughts on the impact covid19 may have on politics -- thread.

The most important impact will be the renaissance of the state.

Many people suddenly depend on the state like never before in their lives:
- for their sheer survival (elder and sick people),
- for their economic well-being (state keeping the economy alive),
- for their freedom (balance between efficiency and protection of liberty)

The difference between living in a country with a competent or an incompetent state is huge; suddenly questions of state competence and capacity become a question of enormous relevance in everybody's life.

Suddenly the international context loses importance. For some the world outside looks even outright dangerous. The virus enters the territory from the outside; borders go up; states are bringing their citizens home to protect them.

Yet managing the crisis requires international cooperation:
- coordination of lockdown measures with other countries,
- cooperation between scientific communities across borders,
- information sharing to learn about best practice,
- economic cooperation to limit economic crisis

In what way will this deeply felt experience lead to political change? We can only speculate at this very early point.

Here are some lessons that might be learned from the crisis:
- Need for a stronger, more intrusive state,
- Need to diversify the supply of essential goods,
- Need to move towards autarky in some areas

Of course there are much more radical scenarios.

The biggest question to me is how the covid19 crisis will affect the tension between the nation state and the global economy and society.

Will it lead to the attempt to make the nation state more central for the economy and the society, leading to a world that is less interdependent, open and willing to cooperate?

Or will the experience of the global pandemic unleash feelings of solidarity ("we're all in the same boot"), will the main lesson be the need to improve institutions and mechanisms of cross-border cooperation between states? More, but smarter globalisation?

My guess is that in the next months we'll see a struggle between both schools of thought.