Document Type : Research Paper
Author
Associate Professor, Department of International Relations, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Introduction
The world’s unpreparedness in managing the COVID–19 pandemic can be analyzed on two levels. The micro level concerns the weaknesses in state governance in responding to widespread human phenomena and crises. The macro level stems from the world order, the structure of the international system, and its procedures. At the macro level, crisis management has faced three key challenges: distrust, discrimination and injustice, and irresponsibility on the part of great powers. However, during a global crisis like the COVID–19 pandemic—which demanded integrated international cooperation, collaboration, and participation—the behavior of great powers—driven by profiteering and the desire to expand their sphere of influence—posed a significant challenge to humanity. These challenges included the instrumentalization of the crisis for power balancing and the containment of rivals, imposition of profit-driven economic policies, obstruction of international medical organizations’ efforts, and most disgracefully, the use of the crisis to intensify economic sanctions against oppressed and innocent nations struggling for survival.
Today, humanity faces the question of whether the current order and leadership of the international system by ambitious world powers can truly create a safer world. Was the decision made at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, the Yalta Conference, and ultimately the San Francisco Conference wise enough to entrust global security to the great powers? How far can the current international system and global order—centered on great powers—carry the burden of humanity’s responsibility in the face of global crises? These questions raise several related issues concerning the challenges the state‑based Westphalian order has created for the responsibilities individuals and nations owe to others. It also concerns how the political and economic foundations established after World War II—along with the harmful consequences of the liberal, U.S.‑led order—have entangled human beings in natural and man‑made disasters, profiteering, and the sacrifice of people’s well‑being for the benefit of a few, rather than promoting values such as devotion and self‑sacrifice. Furthermore, there is the question of the role the secular nature of the current global order has played in generating such destructive effects.
The present study is based on the hypothesis that over the past four decades the current international order has been founded on two main pillars: the state‑based Westphalian order and liberal capitalism. This order has been constituted based on modern rationality and intellectual paradigms such as secularism. It is detached from the sacred as it has developed around the centrality of egotism and profiteering. It is also the product of an international structure whose material, institutional, and paradigmatic dimensions are to guarantee the interests of great powers and ultimately maintain a balance of power among them. As a result, the security and structure of the system of great powers are sustained through distrust, discrimination, injustice, and modern forms of profiteering. In this sense, the system is fundamentally unable to make decisions or act according to human criteria in the management of widespread human crises such as public security and human justice. Therefore, there is the need to establish a new world order based on the foundations and models that reflect human values, human responsibility, and opposition to material profiteering.
Literature Review
Numerous research efforts have examined the transformations of the post‑COVID era, framing the pandemic as a historical turning point in the global order with implications for economic, public health, and political developments. The existing literature also includes critical and postcolonial perspectives about the discriminatory dynamics and power relations embedded in the management of COVID–19. What distinguishes the present study is its macro‑level analysis through the lens of international politics, with particular attention to how the power structure of the international system shapes discriminatory patterns in crisis governance. It also emphasizes the role of modern rationality—and its detachment from the sacred—in shaping the foundations and deficiencies of the current global order. The current inquiry transcends conventional critical paradigms and highlights the need to rethink the foundational concepts within a post‑secular order.
Materials and Methods
This study used an analytical–explanatory method and adopted an eclectic theoretical framework for understanding the international system and crisis management.
Results and Discussion
Any desirable order depends on the realization of four fundamental principles. The first is the priority of general human interests over ethnic, racial, and territorial interests. The foundation of international order must be constituted in relation to the sacred and grounded in a divine system of meaning. Such a system encompasses the entire existential dimension of actors and pursues an end that can liberate the existential life and identity of units from the constraints of egotistic aims and desires associated with instincts, habits, attachments, and environmental factors. It links human existence and identity to two essential elements of collective life—that is, awareness and responsibility—and seeks meaning for being and living beyond the self. In this perspective, meaning is found in choices that transcend the centrality of the self (whether individual or collective), such as ethnicity, race, or nation. In other words, it frees human beings from the constraints of self-centeredness and profiteering and directs attention toward the higher and enduring purposes of existence. Consequently, the need for a critical rethinking of the relationship between ethics and foreign policy becomes increasingly urgent.
The second is the transformation in the concept of politics. In the conventional approach to international politics, the management of human crises has been treated primarily within the literature of low politics; however, it has increasingly been shaped by the issues, subjects, and logic of high politics. High politics is associated with questions of military power, strategy, and the interests of great powers. As a result, within such a system, the dominant approach to crisis policy and crisis management is not oriented toward resolving the crisis itself, but rather toward exploiting the crisis to secure the interests of great powers. The third important principle concerns the transformation in the concept of security. The COVID–19 pandemic was declared a threat to humanity by international institutions, indicating that the hierarchy of global security threats is changing rapidly. The fourth principle is about the transformation in the status of international cooperation and participation. Any plan to restore the international system requires the adoption of an appropriate strategy to strengthen international cooperation.
The four principles above call for a rethinking of the establishment of appropriate medical regimes, a humanitarian global trade system, and a just international politics. Achieving these goals depends primarily on reconnecting politics with the sacred, de-secularizing global decision‑making, and working toward the formation of a new world order. It seems the time has come for religious leaders to move beyond merely criticizing U.S. liberal policies in the management of international politics and to challenge the foundational principles of the U.S. liberal system shaped by structural patterns of oppression and discrimination.
Conclusion
The study critically examined the complex challenges of managing the COVID–19 pandemic. Then, it analyzed the structure of the contemporary international order and explored the roots of its ineffectiveness in responding to crises such as COVID–19. It finally argued for a fundamental rethinking of the intellectual and strategic foundations of global governance in order to overcome its inefficiencies and profit-driven orientation. Reflecting on the COVID–19 crisis raises a central concern: Can the lessons learned this catastrophe help overcome the current state of global disorder and fragmentation, thereby revitalizing humane and cooperative international relations? The post‑COVID world may offer humanity an opportunity to build a just, resilient, sustainable, and trustworthy global order, or it may move in the opposite direction.
Keywords
Main Subjects
References
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