The rapid ascent of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the past several years has shaken Saudi Arabia. Delegated unusual authority by his aged father, King Salman, the crown prince has promised bold steps to modernize the economy and loosen social restrictions on youth and women. Yet his actions on these fronts have been overshadowed by his ruthless moves to intimidate rivals to the throne and silence dissidents at home and abroad. Mohammed’s aggressive foreign policies have also caused many to question his judgment. Now the COVID-19 pandemic and a fall in the oil market have added to the kingdom’s discontents.

The Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and its reimposition of US sanctions put the Iranian economy back into a stranglehold and discredited the reformists led by President Hassan Rouhani who had secured the deal. With the country already reeling from the US sanctions, the COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a heavy blow. As political factions mobilize for the 2021 elections, the situation is more unpredictable than ever.

The six Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf host some of the largest global populations of international labor migrants. As COVID-19 began spreading across the Gulf, migrants made up a large share of the positive cases identified. Migrants’ living and working conditions in the Gulf and other structural vulnerabilities increased their exposure to the disease. Despite the risks of staying in the Gulf, many lower-income migrants preferred to do rather than returning to their home countries. For them, travel restrictions and the difficulty of finding work back home in the midst of the pandemic have outweighed the immediate danger of infection and illness.

Palestinian refugee camps, long established in Lebanon, have become havens for people from other nationalities as well, most recently Syrians who fled the civil war. Accustomed to neglect or outright hostility from Lebanese officials, camp residents have come to rely on each other for support. The COVID-19 pandemic has stretched these networks of mutual aid to the limit. This article offers an intimate view of everyday life during the crisis in a camp in northern Lebanon.

Nations in the Middle East and North Africa have traditionally seen the primary function of social policy as serving the goal of economic growth. But the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the need for a more balanced approach to make societies more resilient, with social protection policies that provide citizens with basic security throughout their lives. Beyond cash transfer programs and other emergency measures, governments should recognize the need for universal provision of health care and other essential assistance. Otherwise they risk leaving the Arab Spring’s popular demands for dignity unheeded.

Although official data suggest that Egypt avoided the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors have warned that the reality is far more grim. Their attempts to speak out have been met with harsh repression. A glance back at Egyptian history from the origins of the modern nation in the early nineteenth century reveals a consistent disregard for citizens’ health, apart from their usefulness as military conscripts.

A historian argues that the story of a former slave who became a leading statesman in Ottoman Tunisia, and then a political exile maneuvering to preserve his estates during French colonial rule, shows how North Africans found ways to pursue their own interests—and develop their own blend of nationalism and historical legacies—under overlapping systems of foreign rule.

Many developing countries have large populations at risk of falling into chronic poverty due to threats to their health and livelihoods. Despite global poverty reduction over recent decades, many remain near-poor, and an episode of ill health or job loss can plunge a household into poverty. The coronavirus pandemic threatens to send tens of millions of people around the world below the poverty line. Some countries are especially unprepared to protect their people from health and economic shocks. They should focus on reforms to improve access to health care, secure work, and opportunities for social mobility.

Forced migrants and refugees are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in different and often more profound ways than local populations. This article examines the multilayered vulnerabilities these groups face due to forced immobility, precarious legal status, loss of income, and risks of eviction due to lockdown measures, as well as forced return migration. It discusses the public health and socioeconomic implications of each of these contexts, providing examples from different world regions, with a focus on South America. A key conclusion is the importance of providing regularization mechanisms for migrants, as well as including migrant and refugee populations in states’ emergency responses.

Comparing the virus responses in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States shows that in order for scientific expertise to result in effective policy, rational political leadership is required. Each of these three countries is known for advanced biomedical research, yet their experiences in the COVID-19 pandemic diverged widely. Germany’s political leadership carefully followed scientific advice and organized public–private partnerships to scale up testing, resulting in relatively low infection levels. The UK and US political responses were far more erratic and less informed by scientific advice—and proved much less effective.

Since the 1990s and Bill Clinton’s embrace of key parts of Ronald Reagan’s legacy, mainstream US governance has been guided by a bipartisan consensus around a formula of shrinking the federal government’s responsibilities and deregulating the economy. Hailed as the ultimate solution to the age-old problem of governing well, the formula was exported to the developing world as the Washington Consensus. Yet growing political polarization weakened the consensus, and in a series of three major crises over the past two decades—9/11, the global financial crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic—US policymakers opted for pragmatism rather than adherence to the old formula, which appears increasingly inadequate to cope with current governance challenges.

By transforming patterns of travel and work around the world, the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the transition to renewable energy and the decline of fossil fuels. Lockdowns brought car commuting and plane travel to a near halt, and the mass experiment in which white-collar employees have been working from home may permanently reduce energy consumption for business travel. Renewable energy and electric vehicles were already gaining market share before the pandemic. Under pressure from investors, major energy companies have started writing off fossil fuel reserves as stranded assets that are no longer worth the cost of extracting. These shifts may indicate that “peak oil demand” has arrived earlier than expected.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a devastating toll on the lives of older adults, intensifying long-standing challenges in the US health care system. Persistent health and mortality disparities on the basis of race and socioeconomic status, staffing shortages and insufficient financial resources at some nursing homes, and a reluctance among Americans to make formal plans for their end-of-life health care are problems of heightened magnitude in the pandemic era. Policy solutions like extending Medicare benefits to younger people, increasing Medicaid reimbursement rates, and facilitating formal conversations regarding end-of-life care may help Americans to age and die with dignity.

An ethnographic study of the work of nurse practitioners at an outpatient care facility shows how these medical professionals must endlessly multitask to fill gaps in the US social safety net. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new focus on the essential work of nurses and the lack of resources with which they often contend is especially timely.

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the preparedness of Russia’s public health system to respond to a nationwide crisis, and the ability of its broader welfare state to cushion the population against the economic impacts. This essay puts these developments in the context of recent reforms of the health care and welfare systems, showing how they affected the population’s vulnerability to the pandemic’s health and economic shocks, and the government’s ability to manage both.

Russia has become a magnet for migrant workers from other post-Soviet countries, especially Central Asians. Although Russian business elites generally welcome this cheap labor source, the government has deferred to, and at times encouraged, xenophobic popular sentiment. Steadily tightening immigration rules have forced many foreign workers into the informal economy, where they are vulnerable to exploitation. The pandemic and accompanying lockdowns have only added to their difficulties.

This essay considers the nature of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in Central Asia. Rather than a “grand strategy” coordinated by Beijing, it is better seen as a decentered, contradictory network of transnational clientelist relationships and semiautonomous profit-seeking institutions. While building much-needed infrastructure, these projects serve to enrich local political elites while fueling resentment and suspicion among their populations. Evidence for this argument is presented from three spheres: the principal implementers of the BRI, the main projects that have been enacted under its auspices in Central Asia, and examples of how these projects have been marred by elite corruption and local protest.

By examining how power is constructed and maintained in Russia with the help of hydrocarbons—oil and gas—this article shows why this system is detrimental to Russia in the context of global environmental, technological, and geopolitical changes. While promoting a hydrocarbon culture as central to national identity, the Kremlin has failed to adapt to the global transition toward renewable energy. But external actors such as the European Union could encourage change from within to develop Russia’s untapped potential as a green power, given its vast endowments of renewable resources.

Drawing from over a decade of experience researching Crimean identities, the author highlights key developments and transformations from the past six years of Russian occupation to show how the annexation of Crimea represents not a “reunification,” as the Kremlin claims, but rather a recolonization. Promises of economic gains have not been met, and liberties have been restricted. The Crimean Tatars have suffered most of all; in a reprise of their forced displacement under Stalin, many have gone into exile on the Ukrainian mainland.

The long-ruling president has manipulated World War II history and downplayed the lasting effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. His similarly dismissive approach to the pandemic provided a spark for an unprecedented election challenge and popular resistance.