By forcing much of the world to go online, the COVID-19 crisis has rapidly broadened the global technology debate beyond questions of surveillance and privacy. The digital policies that governments adopt today will increasingly shape how we work, learn, and entertain ourselves – and how we manage future crises.
Not long ago, America was the unchallenged global hegemon. But as inept leadership fuels an alarming surge in COVID-19 cases amid deepening economic distress and nationwide protests against systemic racism and police violence, many are wondering whether the US can govern itself, much less lead the world.
The COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the challenges facing women and girls, and threatens to roll back recent progress toward greater equality and empowerment. Unless governments’ pandemic responses take gender into account, the most vulnerable could be left behind altogether.
Heightened trade tensions, the ongoing COVID-19 blame game, and sometimes-deadly border skirmishes have sharpened the debate in the United States, Europe, and Asia about how to rein in China’s geopolitical rise. Policymakers must now weigh a range of options – from cooperation to confrontation.
The COVID-19 crisis, and governments’ policy responses to it, could set the world’s leading economies on very different longer-term trajectories. In particular, Europe and China may benefit from stronger and more sustainable post-pandemic recoveries than the United States.
Mass protests over racial injustice, the COVID-19 pandemic, and a sharp economic downturn have plunged the United States into its deepest crisis in decades. Will the public embrace radical, systemic reforms, or will the specter of civil disorder provoke a conservative backlash?
The Chinese government’s decision to impose a draconian new security law on the city has sparked a fresh wave of local protests and triggered hostile reactions around the world. The measure will have dramatic consequences for Hong Kong and its people – but potentially for China’s communist regime, too.
By further emboldening opponents of free trade and far-flung supply chains, the COVID-19 crisis seems to be throwing decades of globalization into reverse. But will whatever comes next be any better?
With a controversial recent ruling, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court has intensified its long-standing conflict with the European Central Bank. Does the court’s judgment represent an existential threat to the eurozone, or is it the wake-up call that Europe needs?
The COVID-19 crisis represents an unexpected opportunity to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable and resilient economy. But as societies start to emerge from the pandemic, will the temptation to return to business as usual prove too great?
Some of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19 are slowly starting to emerge from lengthy lockdowns as their infection rates decline. But how can governments restart the economy while protecting public health?
The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified the war of words between China and the United States, with each side blaming the other for the crisis. Just when international cooperation is arguably more necessary than ever, the world’s two leading powers are making it impossible.
Global cooperation has come under heavy fire from nationalists and populists in recent years. But coordinated international action is essential to combating the COVID-19 pandemic – and other pressing global problems, too.
During the COVID-19 crisis, lockdowns and other social-distancing rules have forced schools worldwide to shut their doors, locking out a peak of 1.6 billion children. Unless the international community acts now, the consequences for this generation – especially its poorest members – will be severe and long-lasting.
