Book Review: Post-Democracy: After the Crises

Abstract

for prisoners and the homeless, lax hygiene standards, crowded living conditions, and uneven testing amplify the pandemic’s adverse impact. Chapters 7 through 10 discuss the interaction between the pandemic and social inequalities by focusing on culture, education, digital inequality, and political ideology. In many Asian countries, wearing masks is commonly accepted, contrary to the opposition to masks in many Western cultures. This might explain why COVID-19 spread more rapidly in the USA than in Asia. The relationship between culture and pandemics is complex; even more complex is the relationship between pandemics and politics. At the beginning of the pandemic, politicians focused mainly on government spending, elections, and international aid, but as the pandemic progressed, wearing masks, safe voting practices and vaccines became political issues. The most intense education-related debate centered on the question of whether schools should be closed and shifted to remote learning. The answer related to whether schools could implement basic safety measures, had sufficient funding for testing and prevention supplies, and could estimate the risk of virus transmission promptly. Shutting down classroom teaching seemed the safest bet, but that exacerbated the digital divide problem. Computer and internet access is not only for the privileged in developing countries, but even in the UK, more than 600,000 children did not have internet access at home at the beginning of the pandemic. Apart from education, the digital division also affects employment, entertainment, medical care, food delivery, online shopping, information, and social relationships. The remaining three chapters point to how we can work toward a better future by focusing on issues of inequality. Chapter 11 highlights that the COVID-19 outbreak shows that we cannot ignore environmental protection. Chapter 12 illustrates that vaccination plays a crucial role in helping the world to “move on.” However, unequal distribution among countries, vaccination hesitation and resistance among some groups, and less effectiveness of existing vaccines against mutated viruses undermine the impact of vaccination. Chapter 13 focuses on what the authors believe is “a unique opportunity for humanity to rethink, and rebuild, our societies” (p. 160), for the pandemic has made otherwise hidden inequalities visible. This book is well organized and demonstrates that COVID-19 has made an already unequal world more unequal and created new disparities by comprehensively explicating the interactions between the pandemic and the economy, culture, education, politics, and the environment. It is a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in the impact of COVID-19 by bringing together a wealth of cutting-edge information and research. The authors call for moving forward but readers might expect to see more specific recommendations of how to do so. However, this slight regret does not detract from the book’s value. It is a powerful book that calls attention to the importance of studying and addressing inequality by focusing on COVID-19.