The pandemic will accelerate history rather than reshape it, according to Richard Haass. If Haass is correct, it is bad news for global governance. The idea that global challenges call for global responses has lost ground in recent years. A continuation of this trend would see problems framed more and more in a national context, and less in a global one. The first part of this presentation looks at such a scenario, and contrasts this with an alternative scenario of a return to international cooperative approaches. International trade is a particular focus. The second part considers how these contrasting scenarios might look if applied to the governance of the European Union, the world’s most sophisticated system of supra-national governance. This section makes particular reference to the governance of economic and social affairs, which in the EU case has both national and European dimensions. It concludes with an estimation of which scenario is more suitable to the challenges ahead, and which is more likely.

April 9, 2020