The rapid shift to online teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the penetration of an algorithmic world view into education systems around the world. Promoted by a burgeoning educational technology industry, platforms that use algorithms to structure and monitor teaching and learning have been presented as technical solutions to systemic problems. But they have also created new problems and reinforced existing inequities, stirring up public and political backlashes. Beyond its immediate effects during the pandemic in 2020, the expanded use of algorithm-driven learning management systems backed by major corporations has major implications for the future of global education.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative is best known as a massive set of infrastructure projects stretching from Asia to Europe. But more than that, it is a sweeping foreign policy vision that provides China with opportunities for deep engagement with virtually every aspect of state and society in its partner countries. Many developing countries welcome the investments and opportunities for trade linked to the initiative, but some of the projects have sparked local resistance over fears of unfair terms or potential opportunities for Chinese intelligence penetration.

Major outbreaks of the coronavirus among workers in meatpacking plants have brought renewed public scrutiny to a hazardous industry. Working conditions had improved through the mid-twentieth century, after investigations by muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair and others early in the century exposed unsafe and unsanitary practices. But benefits and protections for workers have steadily eroded in recent decades, due to the decline of unions and rise of globalized trade and labor sourcing. The backsliding in an industry with a mostly immigrant workforce occurred largely out of the public eye, until the pandemic raised concerns about the food supply.

Nineteenth-century English novelist Mary Shelley wrote a dystopian novel about a global pandemic. From her reading about the connections between wars and plagues, and her personal exposure to wars in Europe and the loss of loved ones to infectious diseases, she came to a conclusion shared by other writers, from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides to analysts of the COVID-19 pandemic: politics is a root cause of deadly contagions.

The Trump administration sought to erode confidence in the international system, which it regarded as an affront to national sovereignty. The COVID-19 pandemic, by raising collective awareness of the need for global cooperation, may help to restore that confidence and encourage renewed commitment to multilateralism. Public opinion polls show that people around the world have greater confidence in global institutions like the World Health Organization than in national leaders like Donald Trump or Xi Jinping. The United States will continue to be an indispensable partner after Trump, but the international order will rest on a stronger footing if Washington is no longer expected to be the prime mover and contributes instead as one among equals.

Two recent books, one about violent Islamist networks and the other about the white power movement, find that they have some traits in common. The seeds for each were sown by US military interventions from Vietnam to Iraq, and they have both proved adept at adapting media formats for propaganda purposes.

The scramble among nations for limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines has drawn attention to long-standing inequities in public health between the global North and South. The COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) is one of several initiatives to pool resources to acquire vaccines for lower-income countries and coordinate distribution. But months before any vaccine had been approved, high-income countries accounting for only a fraction of the global population had already placed orders for more than half of the projected early supply of vaccine doses. The new mechanisms may not be an instant cure for vaccine nationalism, but they may prove to be an incremental step toward more effective and more equitable collaboration.

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.