Anglophone Shattered Hopes and Lost Illusions: Post-Pandemic Political Leadership

Introduction

In predictions for the future, there are dystopias such as Huxley's Brave New World, where technology allows governments to exercise greater regulation of society, whereby totalitarian states can control how their subjects think and act. Equally, there are utopias penned by philosophers, such as Sir Thomas More's idyllic island life. There are, of course, no guarantees that hope will transform into reality. More often than not, circumstances do not improve markedly.

The second decade of the second millennium was a good illustration of this. In the first months of the year 2020, we witnessed a radical global change. The world as we knew it became unrecognisable. Face-to-face social interactions among citizens were drastically reduced almost everywhere due to the Covid-19 pandemic. At its high point during the spring of 2020, almost two-thirds of the global population lived in mandatory confinement (Bates et al., 2020).

This led to the declaration of a state of emergency by numerous States, the closure of external borders, the interruption of face-to-face activity in educational institutions, the closure of factories and entertainment venues, restricted access to all kinds of public spaces, the reduction of physical mobility, the requirement of home confinement, isolation and social distancing to prevent contagion. Populist leaders attempted to turn this crisis into a unique opportunity to elevate their standing and extend their hold on the state apparatus. Thus, an unprecedented event was experienced whereby nation-states transformed themselves into sanitary Leviathans, which even Hobbes probably never imagined, effectively imposing a strict global quarantine. Consequently, through the expedited use of technology, security - especially the surveillance paradigm - has been extended, resurfacing the border as a security artefact through controlling certain mobilities (Csernatoni, 2020). In other words, welcome to the brave new world.

Certainly, global uncertainty has disrupted the foundations of what is established and confronts humanity with new ways of understanding the personal, social, economic, political and cultural. These phenomena imply a systemic crisis that opens new socio-political horizons that may well reinforce the dynamics inherited from the past or may contribute to the change of the world system (Zattoni & Pugliese 2021).

Undoubtedly, many social changes that were already underway have been accelerated, but past practices and structures are also being reproduced. Indeed, in this new context, certain previous dynamics influencing political systems have intensified. For several decades, democratic politics has been characterised by a short-term vision and stark competition for power between candidates to lead the public space and national political institutions, the latest examples of which have been Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Two interrelated questions must be asked in the present uncertain and complex world: what features define the socio-political context in which political leadership must function? What qualities and styles do these leaders need to incorporate in the face of such challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic? How have Anglophone political leaders responded to the pandemic? Which type of political leadership has proven more effective in such a crisis and beyond?

This chapter addresses these questions with a strong focus on the phenomenon of political leadership, with a heavy emphasis on political communication. Liberal democracies, face the dilemma of accountability to local citizens in a decision-making process that goes beyond the limits of national politics since various international organisations such as the European Union, United Nations, World Bank, and World Health Organization (WHO) influence and condition the definition of national public policies (Kenwick & Simmons, 2020, Hirschmann, 2021). This research demonstrates how the state sphere has adapted to the globalised world in recent decades. The concept of globalisation and how it contributes to understanding disaster management policies in the current context is analysed. Lastly, there is a brief theoretical review of political leadership and an attempt to conceptualise it from the perspective of the pandemic to understand current political dynamics. Finally, one needs to reflect on the context and qualities of leadership in this new environment.