Democracy & Governance

The fragmentation of Britain’s COVID-19 ‘lockdown’ strategy has been apparent since the virus first hit the country. The start of social isolation and economic shutdown may have been uniformly implemented across the UK on 23 March but, as different countries within the union start to emerge from lockdown, each region seems to have chosen a strikingly individual route out. It may turn out that this global disease normalises more policy decisions being made at the regional level in Britain.

Do I stay at home or stay alert? Over the last few months, varying demands such as these from the UK’s different political bodies have supplied the nation with a generous helping of confusion (and, in some instances, hysteria). Yet a united response to the pandemic may not necessarily be the best way to defeat it. Centralised government control should roll back, in order for local areas to better assess the threat of the virus there and administer the necessary steps to stop it from spreading.

The fluctuation of the R number across Britain

Westminster granted sub-national bodies greater independence as it became clear that the coronavirus R rate – the rate at which the disease is spreading – varied greatly in different communities. London’s mid-May infection rate, between 0.6 and 0.9, put it at slightly safer levels than Scotland’s estimations which lay somewhere between 0.7 and 1.

Scientific evidence suggests that if the R number is consistently below 1, slower transmission levels of the virus would eventually eradicate it from the nation. However, cases would inevitably exponentially grow if the number crept above 1. In this instance, the removal of a harsh lockdown would only allow the disease to embed itself deeper into the lives of the population. Consequently, Scotland’s predicament demanded a later lifting of its lockdown due to the teetering position of its R number of around 1.

The biological effect of COVID-19 only accounts for a fraction of the havoc it has wreaked on humanity. Education, finance, and social interaction have all been affected. This is fundamentally why Boris Johnson has had to cede so many of his Cabinet’s powers to separate governments in the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Prioritising the reopening of certain regions first

London accounts for 23% of the entire UK economy and a 2018 City of London study found that the capital employed 1 in 59 British workers. It would have been economically unproductive for London, and the rest of England, to wait for Scotland’s transmission rate to be suppressed and for the two countries to come out of lockdown at a unified date. A financial and employment hub like London could not dawdle lifting measures when scientists announced that it was safe for England to begin the gradual reopening of its economy, especially when it was revealed that Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme was costing upwards of £14bn each month.

When combined, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland account for just 15% of UK GDP. Scotland may have contributed £1.2bn in oil revenue to the nation’s economy in 2018, but that same year a nearly a fifth of its population were economically inactive.

Devolved bodies do contribute billions to the UK’s economy and their economies need to be reopened, but their politicians have erred on the side of caution. From a health perspective, Scotland was unable to follow England’s timetable of easing lockdown, but England’s economic output into the nation’s economy perhaps emphasised its need to open sooner. Ultimately, autonomy was granted for local leaders to better scrutinise the scope of their region’s infection rate and do what was best for either the public health or the economy.

However, it is also tempting to subscribe to a more cynical perspective that delegation of power has allowed central government to escape a degree of accountability. With figures such as Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford holding down separate forts, any failures in their lockdown strategies will leave a clear direction for their electorates to point the finger .

The threat posed by the virus is not an easily dismissed issue. Public safety and higher levels of government scrutiny are deeply intertwined. Ultimately, a centralised approach from Westminster would undermine the varying needs of different communities across the UK. It may well be that the pandemic convinces more people of this.

Emily Wilson studies Politics and International Relations at the University of Manchester.

COVID-19 is precipitating the emergence of a new world order, characterised by waning American leadership and a shift of power towards China. In this context, Western democracies will be challenged on cooperation and unity.

Nobody was expecting this decade to begin with such domestic and international disruption. Currently, three billion people wait to be released from their homes, hoping for a short-lived quarantine. Regardless, the socio-political impact will be much longer lasting. COVID-19 has uncovered deficiencies of the post-industrial world order, showing that globalisation constantly hangs by a thread. In particular, the doubtful response from some international institutions has pushed certain economies and governments towards more isolationism. As countries envision their role in the post-COVID-19 world, the international stage is readjusting.

Multilateral world order

For the past fifty years, much of the world has tended towards a Western model of multilateralism and integration. International organisations and laws have become an integral part of the governance system, limiting warfare and improving living standards in many parts of the world. The economic and military dominance of the United States has made it a suitable example to follow in the pursuit of growing trade networks, intensive farming, nuclear dissuasion, and political liberalisation.

Withering leadership

Even before the current crisis, there were already signs of this world order dwindling. The digital revolution has challenged institutions’ legitimacy and distributed power into the hands of new actors. It has changed the way we work, trade, and learn. Such economic transformation has complemented the rise of China-centred Asia into a powerhouse of innovation and investment, which comes as the primary challenge to American leadership.

US President Donald Trump has tended towards an isolationist strategy rather than cooperation, pulling out of international alliances and institutions, most notably the Iran Nuclear Deal and Trans-Pacific Partnership, creating a vacuum for other nations to exert influence in strategic regions. Even if the upcoming American election were to turn the tide, four years of refusing multilateralism has deteriorated American leadership.

Opportunity for influence

These changes look set to be exacerbated by COVID-19. Trump’s EU travel ban and failed acquisition of vaccine patents will not be forgotten in Europe anytime soon. Political scientist Joseph Nye has been amongst those to criticise the Trump administration’s ‘America First’ position, which appears to focus more on competition with China than addressing the spread of the disease.

Alongside this, others have played a leadership-like role. In March this year, Europe emerged as the pandemic’s epicentre. In response, China sent aid and Russia deployed personnel to Italy before any EU member state. China has also made an effort to present itself as a reliable partner, increasing its involvement in international institutions and exporting masks and medical kits around the world.

China sees the pandemic as an opportunity to extend its influence and power. President Xi Jinping’s visit to Wuhan drew eyes to the efficiency of his state governance in fighting the virus. The CPC has found an opening to diffuse its propaganda, in the hope that its political system will come out strong. Nonetheless, China is already facing a resurgence in cases, and the resulting economic blow will be tough. Lack of certain medicines in Europe has sparked debate on Chinese overreliance. Industries are relocating closer to home or to other parts of Asia. It remains to be seen whether China can continue to dominate supply chains.

The place of Europe

In Europe, individual member state action and a sluggish initial response from Brussels prompted leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and former European Commission President Jacques Delors to warn that lack of solidarity would have profound effects on the European project after the end of the crisis.

‘Westlessness’ was the slogan at the Munich Security Conference this year, or the decades long shift of power balance away from the old continent. The EU must use the period after the COVID-19 pandemic to provide momentum for finding a new purpose on the global stage, taking leadership on matters of climate change and data regulation. This can only be done as a united bloc. Current emergency measures should be used to reduce internal fragility.

A more independent Europe should increase collaboration with countries traditionally alienated by the US. In particular, French President Emmanuel Macron has called for more alignment with Russia and Turkey, who are reemerging as neighbouring poles of influence in their own right. The UK would also be best placed aligning with European allies, given Trump increasingly views Britain, much like the rest of the old continent, as a battleground against his Chinese rival.

Barnabé Colin is a graduate student at the LSE’s Department of Government.

Citizens’ assemblies seem like the epitome of good democracy, allowing ordinary citizens to have their say on major policy issues. The recent climate change citizens’ assemblies in France and Britain provided valuable insights for the future potential of deliberative democracy.

What are citizens’ assemblies?

Citizens’ assemblies aim to strengthen the deliberative nature of the decision-making process in policy-making. Deliberative democracy is strengthened when citizens have the opportunity to debate issues before decisions are made on them. In the UK, there have been three notable examples of citizens’ assemblies: Democracy Matters in Autumn 2015, Brexit in 2017, and climate change in January 2020. Citizens’ assemblies have taken place in many countries, including France, Belgium, United States, Australia, and Poland.

In these examples, the assemblies brought together citizens and policy-makers in a sphere where citizens can directly voice their views. Through this process, the public is able to debate key issues with politicians and regional leaders, which brings the issues closer to local communities by giving them the opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences. In theory, this leads to more effective outcomes, with more informed citizens and more legitimised decisions.

In this way, citizens’ assemblies try to address a democratic deficit by adopting a more democratic model. Ordinarily, this opportunity for people to have their voices heard on pertinent issues is limited. In an ideal democracy, this should exist by default. But, in democracies where the integrity of parliaments is questioned and representation is limited on high levels, there is a need for a platform that can fill these gaps. Citizens’ assemblies aim to achieve this by developing the principles of random selection and deliberation through inviting a group of representative people to share their views.

People-shaped solutions to global issues

The use of citizens’ assemblies in both France and the UK in January 2020 provide an opportunity to learn about the role of these fora in solving global issues.

A downfall of the Brexit citizens’ assembly in 2017 was that it was poorly publicised; in fact, many politicians called for such an initiative on Brexit afterwards, unaware that one had been held already. It was strongly implied that any outcome of this citizens’ assembly would be dismissed unless it offered a recommendation that politicians wanted to hear. This gives the impression of hypocrisy: are citizens’ assemblies only effective when they offer what politicians want?

But the latest climate change assemblies provide hope. In 2020, 110 randomly selected citizens became members of the UK Climate Change Citizens’ Assembly, and in France 150 citizens were randomly selected by sortition.

This citizens’ assembly was called for in response to one of the three core demands of the climate activist group, Extinction Rebellion. Although climate change is an international problem, Extinction Rebellion saw value in engaging citizens on a local level to have their views heard by local leaders. This allowed the issue to transcend traditional partisan party lines that can lead to divisive policies, and alleviated the risk that people’s experiences could be forgotten in central policy-making.

In the UK, members tried to inform Parliament on how policies can be redefined to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The members learned about climate change from experts before forming their decisions. In France, members also discussed measures to fight against climate change, and both assemblies raised challenging questions to leaders, spanning from how homes should be heated to how businesses and governments should tackle climate change together. One goal of these assemblies was to put pressure on politicians to act faster; this is especially important since climate change is a pressing issue that cannot wait for a typical five-year term length.

The future of citizens’ assemblies

The presence of climate assemblies across borders, whilst debating the same issue, suggests there is an important role that citizens’ assemblies can adopt. This comes at a time when the University of Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy found that 57.5% of people surveyed were dissatisfied with democracy in 2019 (compared to 47.5% in the mid-1990s).

If democratic institutions are not meeting the needs or expectations of people, then one way to address this could be by establishing more legitimacy and bringing democracy closer to people with citizens’ assemblies. The examples from the UK and France helped to bring together ordinary people to debate global issues. The long-term outcomes of these climate assemblies is yet to be seen, but for the future, it could lead to a more interactive democracy, where citizens’ assemblies are seen as a normal feature of government decision-making.

Preeti Pasricha is co-Head of Agora’s Democracy & Governance Programme