CSS 2021 Solved Current Affairs Past Papers | Covid-19 and the Contemporary World Order
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Question Breakdown
This question has one part. It requires us to analyse how COVID-19 Has Affected the Contours of The Contemporary World Order.
Outline
1-Introduction
2-Overview of the Contemporary World Order
3-How COVID-19 Has Affected the Contours of The Contemporary World Order.
- ✓Geopolitical Shifts and the Evolving World Order
- ✓Economic Transformations and the World Order
- ✓State Power and Sovereignty in the Post-COVID World
- ✓Resurgent Nationalism and the Fragmentation of the World Order
4-Critical Analysis
5-Conclusion
Answer to the Question
Introduction
COVID-19 has emerged as a turning point in the 21st century, which has profoundly and multifacetedly shifted the nature of world politics. With new geopolitical, economic, and social realities becoming the significant aspects defining the new order, COVID-19 has shaped the modern world order. The pandemic exposed the existing vulnerabilities in the international system and disclosed the inefficiency of the global governance system and multilateral organizations. In addition, the world’s geography was subject to considerable change as superpower countries such as the U.S. and China are growing apart in such a tense pandemic environment. Therefore, the inequalities among the different countries made it more challenging to coordinate the global logistics during the pandemic. Also, new digital technologies have put the health-urban nexus on the radar of cities and other forms of sustainability. In respect of the dominance of security and sovereignty of the state, the government has therefore brought more activities under their control, and, using special powers such as emergency declarations, description as well as the restrictions of freedoms, reshaped the power vs rights scales from the old forms to the new ones. There has been a repeat wave of nationalism and populism, mainly if countries are the central focus. There is no longer a common global language as the world is globalizing, and nations focus more on their national affairs than on improving this world. Ultimately, these courses of action have failed to effectuate material changes within the international system and make the world a more disintegrated, complicated, and challenging place to manage and cooperate with others in the future.
Overview of the Contemporary World Order
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was experiencing a shift in the current world order, characterized by growing nationalism, protectionism, and escalating tensions between such powers as the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China. The world economy’s liberalization, prominent in the last third of the 20th century, was gradually waning as national interests prevailed over international cooperation. International organizations dominating the global political and economic systems, including the UN and WTO, became increasingly irrelevant in a global order shifting towards regional power blocs. Authoritarian states and populist actors tested the post-World War II liberal international order, and thus, a shift from a bipolar to a multipolar and fragmented structure occurred. Globalization, climate change, and terrorism necessitated collective responses while growing nationalism challenged international regimes. A similar pre-COVID environment was created for future disruptions, which, followed by COVID-19, altered the structure of the world order more drastically.
How COVID-19 Has Affected the Contours of The Contemporary World Order.
- ✓Geopolitical Shifts and the Evolving World Order
In the geopolitics of the contemporary world, COVID-19 can be regarded as an essential event that has come as a change in world relations. The world has likely witnessed second-non-Western forces like China and Russia asserting themselves, even though, in the same period, the US and the European Union were stuck with political turmoil at home. China resetting itself from the pandemic in rapid fashion and the global health diplomacy of vaccine supply, together with the direct Russian engagement in regional conflicts, showcase that the West has not only lost its monopoly on the world stage but has also experienced a relative decline due to the emergence of previously dominated niches. On one hand, long-standing alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have been weakened within the very economic front of the US-EU. On the other hand, international bodies such as the UN and WHO have been primarily dismissed due to their faulty inter-organizational structures and untrustworthiness. The trends above clearly indicate the decline of the unipolar world order and the rise of a multi-polar world that is increasingly at odds with the West. The international system is further fractioned in the circumstances mentioned, and countries are left to create new, bilateral, or multilateral strategies to adjust to this flexible environment.
- ✓Economic Transformations and the World Order
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a new modality of negotiating geopolitical issues and a staggering and unprecedented change in the global economy. The employment of companies has been increasingly deepening. Nevertheless, the epidemic has shown the fallibility of these companies. That is why governments have started to think of alternatives for them. Instead, they recognized the need for localization with economic nationalism, especially in significant health and tech fields. The digital transformation of financial activities, mainly due to remote working, has accelerated, leading to employees being replaced by digital methods of selling and buying and businesses conducting all their transactions online. The effects of the shift were more prima facie adverse to poorer states, which had been cut off from jobs by the time of lockdowns, than these economically better-off countries that had plenty of excess capital to keep people at home, in that they were given packages such as coronavirus subsidies. Through this episode, the Global North became more privileged economically than the Southern part of the planet, which has also complicated the latter’s cooperation on damage control in the case of the former. The loud voices of reformers for the IMF and the WTO have been getting louder over the years, as these organizations have spurred one of the country’s problems on their way of abating the pandemic. The economic transformations caused by the pandemic seem to have been the most significant factor in the alteration of the structure of political power in the world by the challenge to the old order, which the world has been living in for many years, to come alongside new solutions to achieve global stability.
- ✓State Power and Sovereignty in the Post-COVID World
In tandem with geopolitical and economic shifts, the pandemic has significantly altered the concept of state power and sovereignty. The heads of state were forced to take advantage of their special authorities because the environment in which they were required to respond to the challenges, which included the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crises, was characterized by the power exercise of the state on a global level. The closing of borders and the implementation of stay-at-home legislation were apparent indicators of the return of state sovereignty, which included the subordination of the national right of people to unite in their nations for the goodwill of international cooperation and the free movement of human beings to sovereignty. Often, the reassertion of state control over society was done despite civil liberties because, in many countries, the civil rights of citizens were still too invaded, and the states were still too secretive. On the other hand, the crisis made the state mitigate challenges of ‘self-containment’, ensuring domestic national capacity to deliver health, vaccination, and food security needs, rather than relying on the international supply chain, which can be easily disrupted primarily due to global competition. It’s reported that many countries are acting like a pack of wolves, resorting to economic nationalism again, which is also the shift of focus from globalization to protectionism. The response to many states emphasizes bilateral negotiations, thus keeping the processes unfriendly to the multilateral approach. Hence, the world is watching a different version of sovereignty in the post-COVID-19 concept in which states dominate the economies of underdeveloped nations, reduce their involvement in the global economy, and align with the newly established and more intricate global power structure.
- ✓ Resurgent Nationalism and the Fragmentation of the World Order
Furthermore, the resurgence of nationalism and the COVID-19 crisis have detrimentally impacted the complex order. The crisis led to people avoiding transnational relations, further intensifying government nationalism. One specific instance of the nationalist spirit is the vaccine nationalistic approach, wherein countries first respond to the demands of their citizens while thinking for the world itself. Also, many people were incited by such political discussions to form xenophobic ideas and ask for the denouncement of external factors such as multilateral organizations through the nationalism of the lost world order, which made a base for universal cooperation, so it all came up that the international system deteriorated with the unity of these events. In the impression that other nations and international organizations were not the ones to make a choice but merely an opportunity for their existence, the populist governments were the ones to make people look like bogeymen like those. This trend has deepened the fragmentation of the world order since nation-states are now prioritising security and economic self-sufficiency over the basic needs of the global community rather than vice versa. The recent crises have demonstrated a need for more multilateralism globally, mainly because of organisations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization. The prevailing fragmentation trends brought about by the economic decoupling and the reduction of international cooperation point to the end of the globalized, interdependent international relations period and the emergence of new, more isolated social systems. Thus, in this context, nationalism and isolationism put the society in a state of conflict as they hinder the fight against the most global vices, such as epidemics, environmental damage, and economic fluctuations, creating the most significant potential risk of a more aggressive and dangerous world thus the slide towards the new instability.
Critical Analysis
To critically analyze, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a transformation in world politics, international relations, political geography, and the world economy, whereby the very principle of sovereignty is in flux. This situation has led the non-Western states, such as China and Russia, to shift towards a single Western-dominated global power. The EU’s economy showed that this is no longer the world where the integration of global value chains neutralizes local sovereignty, digitalization, and economic nationalism. Meanwhile, some states have decided to use their acquired power to change the dynamics of sovereignty by introducing neo-liberal policies that favor domestic policies over international ones, usually at the expense of citizens’ rights and transnational cooperation. This process has also been exacerbated by the resurgence of nationalism, which has resulted in increasing protectionism and the unravelling of multilateral systems. The fact that it is a protectionist move that weakens multilateralism and results in the failure to launch a coordinated global response to the pandemic also shows the adverse impact of the phenomenon. All these developments indicate how the interaction of globalization and regionalization, as well as the changing power and economic landscape, illustrate the state of world order that is now transitional, coming to be highly complex and uncertain. In this regard, global crisis management becomes more challenging because no distinct intergovernmental perspective has been made a little more complicated by the outbreak of nationalism. Therefore, to deal with these dynamic and ever-fragmenting surroundings, entirely new international cooperation and regulation paradigms will be indispensable since the previous ways of global politics cannot be further used to settle the diversified troubles of the COVID-19 period.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the global order has been transformed by COVID-19, exposing the cracks and traumas in rethinking global relations. The modifications in geopolitics, economics, and the autonomy of the states necessitate a robust and adaptable framework at the worldwide level. Given the complexity of post-pandemic challenges, various significant issues must be investigated between states. Considering the uniqueness of experience, the international community, according to the principles of the world of work, is called to develop new forms of cooperation and regulation and to look for possibilities for creating a new and just world order. Therefore, the progressive solution to these issues is in process, and the recognition of problems caused by people and their effective resolution at the world level is envisaged.
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