COOPERATION OR COMPETITION DURING THE PANDEMIC OF COVID-19? A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF REALPOLITIC WORLDVIEW

Abstract

The Covid-19 virus emerged firstly in the Wuhan city of China in late 2019 and quickly spread to the rest of the world. A few months later the states and World Health Organization securitized the virus, then it has become a severely full-scale health crisis at the global level. The Covid-19 pandemic has threatened all humanity irrespective of race, nation, religion, and ethnicity except socio-economic class, and has brought widespread insecurity, risk, and uncertainty around the world. Moreover, the pandemic has been a test for cooperative relations among states in the international system. The Covid-19 pandemic is a global problem but the response against the virus has been mostly national during the pandemic. In this context, the paper aims to evaluate the pandemic conditions critically and makes a comparison between the pre-pandemic era and the pandemic era of world politics. The paper concludes that although global problems ask for global solutions, concepts such as egocentrism, nationalism, and national security have increased their importance in the international system instead of cooperation and global solidarity during the pandemic.

Keywords

• realpolitik
• cooperation
• competition
• pandemic