Increased post-virus inequality could fuel discontent

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), which is holding its annual spring meetings with the World Bank this weekend, warned on Tuesday that the coronavirus “crisis is like no other,” with the worst recession pending since the Great Depression. But concerns are growing not just about the financial outlook, but also whether this might herald a new wave of political turbulence in the 2020s.

Worries about the growing prospect of political disorder have already been voiced by the UN — the IMF and World Bank’s fellow supranational organization — with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning late last week that the pandemic is threatening “an increase in social unrest and violence that would undermine our ability to fight the disease.” Specifically, Guterres highlighted pressing issues that could spark disorder as including: Postponing elections or referendums; the pandemic “triggering or exacerbating human rights challenges;” and erosion of trust in public institutions and wider uncertainty that could see further division and turmoil in some societies.

Of course, the potential for disorder is likely to be magnified the worse the economic crisis becomes. Here the news is not good, with the International Labor Organization warning that the pandemic will result in the loss of about 200 million jobs worldwide and drastically cut the income of another 1.25 billion people.

Take the example of South Asia, where the World Bank said last week that the pandemic has already been a “perfect storm,” with the region on course for its worst economic performance in 40 years and decades of progress in the battle against poverty at risk because of coronavirus. India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other smaller nations, which have a combined population of 1.8 billion and some of the planet’s most densely populated cities, have so far reported relatively few coronavirus cases, but there are growing fears they could be the next hotspots. The World Bank has slashed its growth forecast for the region for this year to 1.8 to 2.8 percent, from its pre-pandemic projection of 6.3 percent, with at least half the countries forecast to fall into a deep recession.

Yet South Asia is far from alone in this gloomy prognosis. For the first time in 25 years, sub-Saharan Africa is about to go into a protracted downturn, according to the World Bank, as demand from developed nations for raw materials such as oil and precious metals drops. Following 2.4 percent growth last year, the estimate for sub-Saharan Africa in 2020 is a contraction of between 2.1 and 5.1 percent.

In this context of economic vulnerability, what makes the security situation so fragile is the pre-existing febrile domestic politics of many countries following the 2008-09 international financial crisis, which spawned a wave of turbulence long before the coronavirus crisis. It is estimated there have been about 100 large anti-government protests since 2017 alone, with about 20 of these uprisings playing a significant role in the toppling of leaders, including Prime Minister Saad Hariri in Lebanon last year.

One driver of this turbulence has been the disruptive role of social media. While there remains debate about how instrumental social media has been in fomenting political instability, whether one sees it as an essential component that translated discontent into concrete action or merely one factor accentuating what was already inevitable, it has indisputably played an enabling, mobilizing role that may only grow as technology advances and proliferates.

Going forward, at least two other issues will help determine the degree to which overall political instability will now increase, especially as much of the global economy goes into recession.

Firstly, economic inequality has grown in many countries and may become increasingly politically salient, with many of those who have taken to the streets in the last decade long feeling shut out of their nation’s prosperity. It is eminently plausible that, especially as coronavirus is impacting poorer communities more than wealthier ones, the pandemic could increase the political salience of inequality and spark further social unrest. 

It is eminently plausible that the pandemic could increase the political salience of inequality and spark further social unrest.

Andrew Hammond

Secondly, it is often the young who are most impacted by deep recessions, as was the case in the years after the 2008-09 recession, when people aged between 15 and 24, who constitute less than 20 percent of the global population, accounted for approximately double the percentage of the unemployed. The more that younger people are impacted disproportionately by the coronavirus downturn, the more that discontent will be fueled.

Taken together, there is a significant prospect of a new wave of political unrest driven by the pandemic. With the global economy going into recession, instability could be fueled not just by intensified economic inequalities, but also the prospect of wider political and socioeconomic discontent, which is being given added impetus by social media.

• Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics.