Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly Special Issue

BRIQ (Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly) is currently seeking submissions for a special issue on “The Clash of Socioeconomic Systems in a Post-Coronavirus World”.

Branded by many as the most severe crisis since World War II, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic will certainly mark a defining moment in the history of capitalism.

The failure of wealthy, or advanced capitalist countries to contain the crisis, to ensure the people’s livelihood and to prevent human tragedies makes one question the credibility of neoliberalism as a development paradigm that has been imposed over the past four decades.

On the one hand, there has been a strong resistance to acknowledging the crisis of global capitalism on the part of neoliberal governments in the Western world. Certain Western politicians keep insisting on private healthcare practices and ultra-capitalist measures that prioritize the survival of corporations (and the wealthy elite) at the expense of mass unemployment and enormous human suffering. They also promote a racist language around COVID-19 and used this crisis to justify economic sanctions and other imperialist measures.

On the other hand, public debates are increasingly focused on the potential efficacy of state-led policies that go against neoliberal orthodoxy. In several instances, individualistic discourses lose currency in favor of collectivistic values that encourage public interests, solidarity, and global cooperation away from the politics of fear. Key countries that stand for a more inclusive, or multipolar world (e.g. China, Russia, Cuba) take the lead in bringing these humane and collectivistic values to life.

In the end, the above-mentioned conflicting tendencies embodied in the COVID-19 conjuncture are likely to unveil a slowly brewing clash of socioeconomic systems in the post-Coronavirus world.

Based on the context depicted above, the Belt & Road Initiative Quarterly (BRIQ) calls for essays and academic articles that address issues related (but not limited) to the following areas:

  • The crisis of global health governance,
  • The failure of neoliberalism in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic,
  • The transformation of capitalism in a post-COVID-19 world,
  • The rise of state-led and/or collectivistic, community-based alternatives,
  • Opportunities for global health and/or economic cooperation,
  • COVID-19 and imperialism,
  • COVID-19 and racism,
  • COVID-19 and multipolarity,
  • China’s (and other countries) experience in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and/or lessons to be drawn from the struggle against COVID-19,
  • The political economy of COVID-19,
  • The geopolitics of COVID-19.

Deadline for Paper Submissions: May 20, 2020