Open AccessSoft power in times of the plague: the winners and losers of first wave of COVID-19 (winter-summer 2020)
Author(s) -
Katarzyna Pisarska
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
sprawy międzynarodowe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2720-0361
pISSN - 0038-853X
DOI - 10.35757/sm.2020.73.3.10
Subject(s) - soft power , covid-19 , pandemic , plague (disease) , power (physics) , politics , state (computer science) , political science , third wave , development economics , economic growth , political economy , geography , economics , medicine , law , physics , disease , archaeology , pathology , quantum mechanics , algorithm , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty)
The aim of the article is to identify the soft power winners and losers of the first wave of the global health crisis caused by COVID-19 (winter–summer 2020); to analyse the factors which have contributed to such outcome; and finally, to extract examples of the best practices, which can serve other states in the next stages of the pandemic. The article argues that there is a correlation between the quality of a country’s response to the global health crisis (both domestically and abroad) and a change in international public perceptions of that state. Moreover, the states that gained the most soft power in 2020, have not done so based solely on their political system or past performance. Instead, a key factor was the existing domestic and foreign policy collaborative culture, which resulted in the ability to get everyone behind a common response to the crisis at home, but also to promote global solutions to the crisis abroad.