Understanding the post-COVID state and its geographies

The COVID pandemic has killed more than six million people, shaken the world economy and disrupted the world order.1 The first two decades of the twenty-first century have been tumultuous, marked by a concatenation of crises of various kinds which have interacted in mutually reinforcing ways to define what Janzwood and Homer-Dixon (2022) refer to as a ‘global polycrisis’. States across the globe have found themselves confronted by a series of shocks of historic proportions, some sudden and (largely) unexpected (such as the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, the global COVID pandemic that began in late-2019, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early-2022), others systematic changes (‘megatrends’) that have been developing and growing over a longer timespan but are equally disruptive and challenging (such as growing internal social and spatial inequality, and of course climate change). The aim of this issue of CJRES is to explore and critically interrogate how states have responded to the COVID crisis, and what form the ‘post-COVID’ state might assume. In addressing these questions, the focus is very much on the geographies of the state. How have states managed – or indeed, exacerbated – the geographically uneven incidence of the pandemic within their domestic territories? How have central states harnessed or over-ridden actions and responses by local states and authorities? Has the pandemic exposed major tensions between these two levels of the state? Will the level of sovereign state debt incurred as part of the response to the pandemic lead to another phase of austerity (Kentikelenis and Stubbs, 2021). If so, will the new phase of austerity intensify existing social and spatial inequalities in economic prosperity, welfare and health outcomes? How will states improve the health security of their citizens at a time when there are also other pressing policy challenges arising from the existential need to transition to a net zero carbon economy and to solve the inflation crisis? This paper is organised as follows. We first set the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of the series of historic shocks and crises that have disrupted global capitalism in the modern era, and then briefly examine how such shocks and crises have both posed major problems for, and tended to provoke historic shifts in, the nature of the state and its intervention in the socio-economy. Against this contextual background, we then move on to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, including the challenge it has presented to states and state policy. The paper then takes this discussion further by examining the different ways that specific states have reacted to the pandemic, particularly in China, the USA and the UK. Finally, we address the issue of whether we should expect another historic inflection in the nature of the state – a move to a ‘post-COVID’ state – or simply a return to the ‘neoliberal’ form that, in different guises and to varying degrees, has characterised the past forty years or so. A key theme that emerges through the paper is how geography – both at the international scale and inter-regional and inter-urban scales within countries – has played a role both in the incidence of the pandemic and in shaping state responses to it. Shocks and crises have been a recurrent feature of modern capitalism since the industrial revolution. But the extent, impact and interaction of such shocks seemed to have reached a new peak in 2020 – or should that be nadir? Although many scholars and politicians perceive that we are living in unprecedented times, the path of economic growth has rarely been linear or steady. Pandemics have periodically had major impact on global health and prosperity but it is financial crises that have occurred more frequently since the industrial revolution. Financial crises include a range of shocks that lead to some financial assets losing their nominal value and include banking crises, stock market crashes, currency crises and defaults on sovereign debts. The causes of financial crises are subject to much debate. But some common themes include the problems of contagion and systemic risk where financial institutions are highly interdependent and where the collapse of one major institution may lead to a system failure. Furthermore, the threat of a system failure may lead to policy makers and regulators engaging in excessive protection of financial institutions creating a moral hazard problem where financial institutions excessive are to The problem financial crises is that many lead to on the economy as may be to to and may be to to the aim of a financial crisis is to on but on crises have been since the and have as as countries and since has been that of the and and is by the and one of the from when to the of of financial from what and what has The economic of crises on whether their are or may include a of and but the economy to its growth then the will be are crises and shocks that set that growth and market that a in may to the market have more to are it to be and their may or be The impact of the financial crisis the market as there growth of both and Furthermore, a in to austerity to which further economic social and economic has the nature of capitalism as a crisis social system of and uneven 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