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. 2022 Jul 8:10:902724.
doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.902724. eCollection 2022.

The Tragedy of Liberal Democratic Governance in the Face of Global Threats

Eric Muraille  1 , Philippe Naccache  2 , Julien Pillot  2
Affiliations

The Tragedy of Liberal Democratic Governance in the Face of Global Threats

Eric Muraille et al. Front Public Health. .

Abstract

In hindsight, the early response of liberal governments to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was chaotic and generally inefficient. Though one might be tempted to attribute these failures to the incompetence of certain political decision-makers, we propose another explanation. Global threats require a coordinated international response, which is only possible if the threat is perceived in the same way by all, and if government priorities are similar. The effectiveness of the response also relies on massive adhesion of citizens to the measures imposed, which in turn requires trust in government. Our hypothesis is that certain fundamental features of liberalism complicate such global and collective responses: neutrality of the state and primacy of the individual over collective society. Liberalism considers that institutions and public policy must not be designed to favor any specific conception of the common good. That which is best for all is usually determined by a "competition of opinions," which frequently leads to scientific expertise being considered as only one opinion among many. Liberalism also imposes strict respect for individual freedoms and private interests and tends to reject any form of collectivism or dictate imposed by the common good. In order to solve these structural problems and improve society's management of global threats, we make several proposals, such as the introduction of a minimal and consensual definition of the common good and the promotion of a health policy guided by One Health-like concepts. Overall, our analysis suggests that because political ideologies provide their own definitions of the common good and the place of scientific knowledge in the governance process and can thus affect the response to global threats, they should be urgently taken into consideration by public health experts.

Keywords: COVID-19; One Health (OH) approach; global threats; individualism and collectivism; liberalism; neutrality of the state; postmodernism.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Comparaison of conventional and global threats.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic view of the decision-making process in the face of global threats.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comparison of excess mortality (Deaths from all causes compared to projection based on previous years) for Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom and United States between Jan 5, 2020 and Jan 10, 2021. The data comes from https://ourworldindata.org/.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Structural weaknesses of liberalism in the face of global threats.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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