Here's what I said on the @TPpodcast_ yesterday. The short version is that we are still at the early stage of this crisis and we should be cautious about drawing conclusions about the international political consequences of it. 1/16
It seems to me that the challenge in thinking about the coronavirus is that it is a health crisis, which will have economic consequences and domestic and international political consequences, which may in turn feed back into the health crisis. 2/16
It is already possible to say something about the economic consequences - as @adam_tooze and others have done. But it is more difficult to say anything meaningful about the possible political consequences – though of course we have to begin to think about them. 3/16
It is possible to make both the argument that the crisis will lead to more conflict in international politics but also the argument that it will lead to more international co-operation – and it could lead to elements of both. 4/16
There is currently much discussion about the end of globalization (see e.g. @gideonrachman's column earlier this week). But much of this discussion is too binary – as if globalization either exists or it doesn’t. 5/16
We need to think about globalization in a much more differentiated way – there are different degrees (e.g. @rodrikdani distinguishes between moderate globalization and “hyper-globalization”) and different kinds or elements of globalization. 6/16
In particular, if you think of globalization as consisting of flows of capital, goods and people, it is possible to imagine different degrees of “de-globalization” in each of these three dimensions. 7/16
There is a clearly a scenario in which new barriers are erected to the movement of goods – especially for pharmaceuticals and certain kinds of manufactured goods that are seen as critical to national security – see Peter Navarro’s comments. 8/16 ft.com/content/f6bc49…
But so far what has come to a sudden stop is not so much the movement of goods and definitely not the movement of capital (though there is a flight to the dollar etc.) but the movement of people - which is after all what spread the virus. 9/16
During the last 30 years, the removal of barriers to the movement of capital and goods went much further than the removal of barriers to the movement of people. In that sense, “hyper-globalization” is unbalanced form of globalization. 10/16
It is also possible to imagine a scenario in which capital and (with some exceptions) goods continue to flow relatively freely, but the movement of people becomes much more restricted, i.e. globalization now becomes even more unbalanced. 11/16
What distinguishes the EU is not just that the removal of barriers to capital, goods and people went even further than in the rest of the world but that it was more balanced - the removal of barriers to the movement of people went relatively far. 12/16
The crisis will therefore raise very difficult questions about the future of the freedom of movement in the EU, which is currently suspended. As the UK experienced during Cameron's renegotiation, the four freedoms are seen as "indivisible". 13/16
In terms of the consequences for the EU, it seems to me that much of will depend on how symmetric or asymmetric this shock turns out to be. In other words, will every member state be impacted equally by it or will it have a differential impact? 14/16
At a first glance it is a much more symmetric shock than the series of previous shocks the EU has faced since 2010. But it may yet turn out to be asymmetric to at least some extent – it is again too soon to say. 15/16
This is particularly relevant for the future of the eurozone - and especially for how willing countries like Germany will be to abandon their previous opposition to debt mutualization. We will see what happens at the European Council today. 16/16
