Corona in a Discontent World: Economic, Political and Social Impacts and Philosophical Lessons

The Center for Arab Unity Studies published the book Corona in a Discontent World: Economic, Political and Social Impacts and Philosophical Lessons by a group of authors (edited by: Fares Abi Saab).

The Corona wave, which has swept the world since the beginning of 2020, has sparked a state of global confusion and anxiety that the world may not have known since World War II. If the smell of death and feelings of fear and anxiety in that war filled the continents of Europe and Asia and at least part of Africa, then this smell or those feelings during the Corona pandemic almost entered every street and every house in the entire world, and the ban was not limited to areas of combat and occupation, as in World War II, but every person has become subject to a ban, even from his family members, if he gets infected by the Corona virus. Manifestations of isolation extended to all societies. Institutions were closed, gatherings became rare, and remote communication became the dominant situation. Performance declined at various levels: educational, productive, health, service… and political. Thus, major models in governance, administration, production, social policies, health security, international cooperation, and global integration were exposed. Questions began to be raised about the national state, liberalism, capitalism, globalization, culture, and about the future of the world after the Corona pandemic.

Many crises have emerged in the world in light of Corona, including social, political, economic, food and health. But these crises varied in their size and impact from one society to another and between one country and another, and reactions to them varied by governments, political elites, peoples, and productive, civil, and cultural sectors, reflecting differences among political and economic systems and different cultures in their reactions and ways of dealing with crises like these and with major threats.

This book, to which a group of Arab thinkers and researchers contributed, presents multiple readings of research approaches and different fields of knowledge of the Corona phenomenon in the world. It brings together eighteen studies, covering the various dimensions of the pandemic and its economic, political and social effects at the international and regional levels, and also covers the relationship between the pandemic and the global system crisis and the philosophical, cultural, economic and political models that govern it.