Pandemics as Crisis Performance: How Populists Tried to Take Ownership of the Covid-19 Pandemic

In: Mezinárodní vztahy: Czech journal of international relations, Band 56, Heft 4, S. 147-157

Abstract

With the Covid-19 pandemic dominating the agenda, it seems almostnatural that it be associated with another buzzword: populism. As thepandemic advances, it seems that the prediction of populism surviving thepandemic due to its own diversity has been proved right, given thevariation in responses by populists around the world. One commondenominator stands out though: populists across the political spectrumunderstood the benefits of performing the Covid-19 crisis as a tool tostrengthen their political positions. They tried to politicize the pandemic toincrease the antagonism between the people and the elites. In this article, Iintroduce the notion of crisis as both a construct and a performance, and asa useful concept to analyze populist reactions to the pandemic. I argue thatnotwithstanding the attempts to politicize the pandemic, the Covid-19 crisisended up imposing its own reality. In other words: the crisis could not beowned by politics.