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What is the future of technocracy, after COVID-19, asks Jonathan White (LSE)? Current crisis management only blurs ever more the boundary between politics and technical expertise, he argues.

Problems of this severity and scope can only be solved through global cooperation, write Muhammad Shahbaz and Muhammad Ali Nasir

Gemma Moss considers whether COVID-19 can act as a catalyst for change in education, leading to different policy choices and a more stable education system, better able to address the dilemmas that prolonged disruption in education and which current policy does so little to address.

The Covid-19 pandemic may be exposing the weaknesses of populism. We should not be complacent, however, as authoritarianism is the real problem, warns Daphne Halikiopoulou (University of Reading). Covid-19 has already infected over 700,000 people worldwide (at the time of writing). Its exponential spread has placed national health systems under severe strain, it has closed borders, and grounded airlines. How may we assess the political implications of this global crisis, especially given that it comes at a time when populists who thrive on the tensions between international initiatives and the ‘national preference’, are in charge in many countries?

In the Covid-19 crisis, with few or no people and animals around, space opens and we can look inside ourselves, writes Deborah Rowland and Nicole Brauckmann

COVID-19 has been portrayed internationally as a disease more dangerous than Ebola. In Uganda this has created fear among various communities, specifically in the north of the country, where the memory of Ebola remains present. A consequence of the outbreak is reported xenophobia and rumours the epidemic is spread by the rich. Robin Oryem reports from experience on the ground and the role of behavioural change in preventing the disease’s spread.

Every Thursday the UK is encouraged to ‘clap for carers’ – who are far more likely to be women. Yet the government has not considered how measures such as furlough and school closures affect women disproportionately, and there is an absence of female representation at the top of government and in the COVID-19 working group. Clare Wenham (LSE) says that this needs to change as it develops an exit strategy.

Fridays for Future, which was set up to campaign against climate change, has had a major impact across Europe. Yet the Covid-19 outbreak has forced the movement to adopt new strategies beyond public demonstrations. Sophia Hunger and Swen Hutter examine how supporters were mobilised in Germany during a recent online climate strike.

São Paulo’s many informal workers, like those in the rest of Brazil, have reacted to COVID-19 with impressive speed and agility. As demand for products like masks, gloves, and sanitiser has soared, small-scale production has been ramped up and new solutions have been found for logistics and marketing. But ultimately the mother of this invention is dire necessity, and the confused and contradictory response of the Brazilian state has done little to mitigate the precarious conditions that informal workers face day-to-day, write Kauê Lopes dos Santos (University of Sao Paulo & LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre), Jonatas Santos (University of Sao Paulo), and Larissa Santos (University of British Columbia).

John Connolly draws on new survey data to argue that the UK public have a strong sense of individual responsibility when it comes to containing the spread of the virus and resolving the crisis. He also finds that the decisions of governmental actors at multiple levels are generally perceived as positive, but warns that clear communication from government is crucial in maintaining this support as the UK prepares to exit the lockdown.