The Pandemic Within: Policy Making for a Better World

Description

COVID-19 has exposed defects in our current political-economic order: extreme wealth inequality, an ideology-driven government, a greedy corporate sector, a precarious labour force and a looming climate catastrophe. This accessible book offers a unique blend of moral imagination and social-political analysis to overcome these defects. It focuses on two characteristics of contemporary societies - hegemony and complexity - that have inhibited our ability to imagine, and take seriously, better practices and institutions. Considering housing, work, governance, finance, climate change and more, this book presents feasible and pragmatic solutions which are informed by a comprehensive vision of a flourishing, sustainable and richly democratic society.

Hendrik Wagenaar is Senior Academic Advisor at the International School for Government at King's College London, Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, Austria and Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra. Barbara Prainsack is Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna and Director of the interdisciplinary research platform Governance of Digital Practices. She is also Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney and Honorary Affiliate at King's College London.

"This book offers a thoughtful, original and timely take on current environmental threats, focusing on the importance of solidarity and care, tending to our collective habitat rather than controlling it." Gisli Palsson, Stefansson Arctic Institute, Iceland