COVID-19 and the International Political Economy of Risk and Resilience

This forum contribution highlights the confluence of two distinct trends in the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. On one hand, many of the worst socio-economic costs of the virus and control measures have been disproportionately borne by marginalized workers, primarily in the global south. Often these impacts have not overlapped with the public health costs of the virus itself. In this sense the pandemic has highlighted the ways that risks in the global political economy are unevenly and systematically distributed. On the other, early indications are that highly individualized notions of ‘risk management’ and ‘resilience’ will be central to post-crisis global development agendas. At the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic has made the systemic and unequal nature of risks in the global political economy visible, then, many of the most marginalized segments of the world’s population are being asked to take responsibility for managing those risks.