Pandemocracia

According to its etymology, a pandemic is an infectious disease that affects everyone, while an epidemic would have a geographically limited area. We could say that our government instruments are designed to manage epidemics and not pandemics, as they are local and not global institutions. Hence the first feeling of powerlessness in the face of a phenomenon that requires greater political integration of humanity, along the lines of strengthening transnational institutions or global governance and, in general, a transition towards forms of cooperative intelligence, clearly insufficient in the world we live in. The definition of democracy indicates that all those affected by a decision must be able to participate in it, that the community of those affected must coincide with that of those who decide. In this sense, the coronavirus crisis would be a pandemocratic event, like all global risks. There is a paradox that a risk that equals us all reveals at the same time how unequal we are, causes other inequalities and tests our democracies. All this is discussed in this book, a philosophical reflection of urgency made at an exceptional moment in our history.