Thirty Years of ProtoSociology - Three Decades Between Disciplines

Georg Peter, Reuß-Markus Krauße, Gerhard Preyer

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9783755700760
• eBook ISBN: 9783756297047
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The contributions to the "Thirty Years Volume" represented in this volume reflect the historical focus of the ProtoSociology project. Colleagues are represented who contributed to the focus. This is also true thematically, as contributions on language theory, the philosophy of the mental, and the sociology of contemporary societies are represented. The contributions to the "Thirty Years Volume" are definitely evidence that they address central research problems of ProtoSociology, regardless of their particular epistemological interests.

Studies about Contemporary Societies

LEARNING FROM COVID: THREE KEY VARIABLES

Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Abstract

Covid data show that wealth is not health. What then are the major variables that affect public health in the Covid–19 pandemic? Based on onsite research in 26 countries across the world this paper singles out three variables – knowledge, state capability and social cooperation. If one of these is dysfunctional or absent Covid–19 performance suffers. The variables work best in combination. Under consideration are three phases of Covid–19 – virus control, vaccines, and the race with variants. Which types of society best combine these variables? Comparing varieties of market economies – liberal, coordinated and state-led market economies (with four variants), Covid–19 data indicate that coordinated and developmental state-led market economies tend to generate the best combination of variables and public health outcomes, and liberal market economies and rightwing populist countries produce the worst combination. Comparative Covid–19 research points to the limitations of macro theories and methodological nationalism, the importance of the unit of analysis and the database, and how variables interact. At a time when multiple crises interact it leads to reflection on glaring limitations of global governance.

Differences in Covid–19 public health performance and health outcomes between regions and countries are staggering. They were staggering before Covid but Covid makes differences salient. Which are the most important variables to consider?

A common-sense assumption is that wealth is health and the higher a society’s per capita income, the lower will be Covid deaths and vice versa. But data don’t bear this out. Compare countries in terms of Covid–19 deaths per million of population with similar per capita income, also countries that are geographically and culturally close (based on Worldometer data per 11/27/21):

• Canada 772/1M, US 2378/1M
• Norway 182, UK 2105
• Finland 225, Denmark 483, Sweden 1480

Also among low and middle-income countries there are wide discrepancies in health outcomes regardless of income level – such as Rwanda 100/1M (per capita $2,1k), Vietnam 241 (per capita $8,2k) and Peru 5977 (per capita $6k, 2020). Such diverse health outcomes need an explanation. An obvious question is what kind of wealth? A high concentration of wealth doesn’t bode well for public services and public health.

By many accounts Covid brings the comeback of the state, also in market-led societies (Fukuyama 2020). Market forces and corporations don’t fix crises, crises of public health, climate change, inequality or natural disasters, unless they provide profit opportunities. Inequality during Covid times has increased worldwide and significantly in liberal market economies (Gray 2021, Goldin 2021). Hedge funds are double or triple hedged for stability as well as catastrophe, as Nesvetailova and Palan (2020) note.

Based on onsite examinations of pandemic health performance of 26 countries across the world (Nederveen Pieterse, Lim, Khondker, eds. 2021), three key variables stand out in success or failure in dealing with Covid – knowledge, state capability and social cooperation. Each is crucial but they work best in combination so their effects are cumulative.

Knowledge and science are key to guiding collective action, not merely in the sense of expert knowledge but also in the sense of social knowledge. Social experience with infectious diseases plays a key role, such as SARS and MERS in East Asia and HIV and Ebola in Africa. Lack of such experience plays a part in the lack of public health preparedness in many countries in Europe and the Americas. Social learning also falls under ‘culture’, such as masking culture in Northeast Asia – when feeling unwell, wear a mask in public to avoid infecting others (Rich 2020).

State capability refers to effective, pro-active government, responsible and capable leadership and efficient use of resources, including time. Examples of capable state action are South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Rwanda’s prompt and capable state action (Condo and Rwagasore 2021) contrasts with disorganization in Kenya (Kalebi 2021) – although if we factor in the excess death rate, Rwanda’s advantage vanishes (Table 1 below). The issue isn’t state power per se but what kind of state power and with what intention it is used; a state of exception for what purpose? In a pandemic the core variable is public health.

Legitimacy and the credibility of the state are part of state capability, a soft power capacity. Trust in government is earned over years or decades. Distrust of the state plays a part in anti-vax attitudes and high Covid–19 deaths in Russia and Eastern Europe. After experiences with deception, such as the forced sterilization of indigenous women, indigenous peoples in the Americas fear vaccination. In Peru where indigenous people make up 33% of the population this has been a factor in the high Covid death rate (Briceño 2021).

In the US frontier individualism and distance from the federal government play a part. In addition, decades of anti-government discourse and dysfunctional government have undermined the trust that was earned during the New Deal period. In the US aggressive anti-science comes not just from the extreme right and the dark web but also from within Congress (Hotez 2021).

Knowledge and state capability work in tandem. Also a country with a capable state and a high degree of social cooperation doesn’t function without adequate knowledge. Consider Sweden. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, the head of the Public Health Agency held on to the narrative of herd immunity (also when it was abandoned in the UK and US), along with policies of an open economy and voluntary restraint, which led to loss of trust in the public health agency and cost countless lives (Kampmark 2020) and the highest score of Covid–19 deaths in Scandinavia. Tegnell explains the difference with other Scandinavian countries by pointing to Sweden’s higher number of migrants and crowded housing.

Experience or lack of experience with infectious diseases play a role in pandemic response and in the politicization of pandemic knowledge. The politicization of science in Italy is a case in point (d’Andrea and Declich 2021).

A friend in Kigali, Rwanda emails: ‘the history of the genocide and other health scares are relevant. If you’ve been through a genocide the idea that wearing a mask is some sort of hardship is manifestly ridiculous, and the horror of Ebola has made fe...

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Editorial: After Thirty Years
• Philosophy Acquaintance, Phenomenal Intentionality, Pre-reflective Consciousness
• Reference of Names, Semantic Values, Speaker Intention, Practical Sentences
• Sociology, Multiple Modernities, and Concepts of Globalization
• Studies about Contemporary Societies
• The Next Society
• Contributors
• Imprint
• Subscription – Single Article
• eBooks and Books on Demand
• Bookpublications of the Project
• Copyright