No Demos in the Pandemic

That the present moment ties multiple crises together—not least because each is a future of pasts that wound(ed) through each other—must be factored into our intercessions and visions. If every crisis is also a call to order, then what order, old or new, does the pandemic call us to? Its literality...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Democratic theory (Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)) N.Y.)), 2020-12, Vol.7 (2), p.166-171
Main Author: Abbas, Asma
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citizenship
Crises
Democracy
Epidemics
Fascism
Pandemics
Poverty
State failure
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Summary:That the present moment ties multiple crises together—not least because each is a future of pasts that wound(ed) through each other—must be factored into our intercessions and visions. If every crisis is also a call to order, then what order, old or new, does the pandemic call us to? Its literality provokes us to keep both the pan and the demos in sight, just as they are being extinguished through borders, disease, poverty, insecurity, hatred, and disposability in the global postcolony. We are asked to remember that capital and colony are inseparable, that the nation-state is too suspicious a source of comfort, that the eroding claims of citizenship across the postcolonial and post-democratic fascist failed states are instructive and prophetic, and that the assumptions of place and movement in our frames of the democratic political need revisiting.
ISSN:2332-8894
2332-8908
DOI:10.3167/dt.2020.070220