This introductory article outlines how Global Political Economy and the nuanced perspectives of scholars from this interdiscipline navigate claims about the origins and consequences of, as well as responses to, the COVID-19 pandemic. Emerging social scientific assessments have tended to understand the pandemic as either an entirely novel crisis (“everything has changed”) or one merely extending preexisting economic and political tensions (“nothing has changed”). Early analyses of political-economic aspects of the crisis assembled in this collection instead highlight both patterns of continuity and change—and the importance of situating changes within prepandemic continuities—that have emerged during the first year of the global pandemic. This introductory article brings together suggestions by and for Global Political Economy scholars, as well as social scientists more generally, for further researching key dynamics shaping the global political economy in the COVID-19 era as it keeps unfolding and evolving.

What happens to remittances, an important feature of the global financial system, when a pandemic strikes? Despite early predictions of significant drops in volumes, flows have been affected less than expected. This commentary explains that this outcome is attributable in part to a renewed focus on the infrastructure of global finance and an accelerated development and use of digital solutions, but that it is mostly a result of the individual efforts and resilience of migrants.

The article is written in the form of an essay (for Dahrendorf Symposium), speculative in essence, yet based on the new selected evidence concerning peoples’ opinions and attitudes disclosed during the pandemic. It starts with remarks about predictions in social sciences and the complex problems in studying the shocks created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Second part is devoted to major challenges and trade-offs states, governments and citizens have to face currently, focusing on one particular which is crucial for the future quality of liberal democracies, that is a trade-off between democratic norms and values and surveillance practices. The article concludes with a discussion of several issues, which have become more salient during the pandemic, challenging our previous knowledge about them.

The deep recession expected as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic will leave both governments and private-sector companies with a greatly increased debt burden. That will have severe consequences for the financial system. Banks will suffer large-scale defaults on business and personal lending. To work off the debt overhang, interest rates may be held down by central banks for a long period. Inflation may rise, which would deflate the real value of debt, but inflationary pressures are currently weak. Financial repression will add to the pressures on banks and other financial institutions. Major banks enter the crisis period with high capital ratios, but expected losses on loan portfolios will put some under strain. Less strongly capitalized new entrants may suffer disproportionately. Other likely changes are more rapid growth in digital financial services and a decline in cash usage. Central banks will probably issue their own digital currencies, which will make maintaining negative interest rates more achievable. At the same time, the international financial system will be put under strain by global tensions generated by the crisis. In this complex environment, it will be crucial for governments, central banks, and the banking system to collaborate closely and for the European Union to bolster the eurozone with long-planned but long-delayed reforms, in particular to promote a capital markets union that could relieve pressure on banks’ balance sheets.