“The pandemic has shown that illness and other
aspects of life now can’t be stopped by borders,”
says Scott Wilson, a political scientist at the
University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee,
who helps lead the institution’s global initiatives.
“It has shown the importance of integration in
terms of the response,” Wilson says. “Without
global institutions and global cooperation, we
would be in much worse shape. ... We can’t turn
that back.”
So what happens next? Presuming American
society emerges from the spring (and summer?)
of coronavirus largely intact, where does its
global-engagement discussion go?
Jonathan Cristol, a research fellow at Adelphi
University’s Levermore Global Scholars Program
in New York, predicts that the coronavirus will
“provide ammunition for all sides.”
“People ... opposed to globalization and free
trade will use the spread of the pathogen as
an argument for why we need to roll back
globalization. That will be framed in terms
of immigration, in terms of anti-Chinese
sentiment,” he says. “And the people who
favor interconnectedness will use the working
together toward a common purpose as a way to
back up their argument.”
One side effect of the virus era may actually
stimulate globalization. Stripped of their ability
to travel or meet in person, humans have
doubled down on virtual communication more