International Journal of Social Quality

At the dawn of the devastating events of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the editorial of the first issue of 2020, as well as in the articles, topics related to the overwhelming impact of the emerging crisis were explored (Van der Maesen 2020). In particular, reference was made to the topical performances of the federal governments of the United States and Brazil, as well as the British government. As an introduction to this special issue, it is interesting to recall and extend some of the observations that were made last year.

In the case of the United States, when COVID-19 appeared, the hazards of the virus were downplayed and even neglected. The president countered the opinion of public health experts with false, misleading comparisons to other countries (Qiu 2020). It was proposed to cut the budget of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention by 16 percent starting in October 2020. Long-lasting contacts and collaboration with the World Health Organization were broken. Due to export restrictions on medical products, importing countries were unable to obtain sufficient medical equipment, resulting in a shortage in healthcare equipment that had to be made for up via a mandatory increase in local production. This came at a high cost and with serious delays (Krueger 2020). For the United States itself, the initial attitude of the government resulted in a dramatic blow to its public health resources and capabilities. The quality of hundreds of health departments around the country suggests that the nation may be less prepared for the next pandemic than it was for the current one (Baker and Ivory 2021). The violence toward public health professions is gradually taking shape (Schreiber 2021). An overriding societal pattern, which in the United States undermines the principles of effective public health, is the primacy of personal rights over collective responsibility and solidarity. More than half of US states have introduced new laws to restrict public health measures, including policies requiring quarantine and mandating vaccines and/or masks.

The cases of Italy and China make for an interesting comparison because they represent quite different governance approaches to the pandemic. These differences may be instructive for the in-depth comprehension of the nature and the impact of government approaches to resolving crises. The two regions notably do share common histories in the spread of pandemics. The first cases of COVID-19 in Asia and Europe were registered in China in December 2019, and in Italy in January 2020, respectively. The origins and initial epidemiological dynamics of the pandemic, though, are still unclear and are the subject of scientific discussion (Dou et al. 2021; Nadeau et al. 2021). In the thirteenth century, the spread of “the plague” (Yersinia Pestis) is assumed to have spread from the Asiatic steppes to Venice, at that time a powerful city-state with intensive transcontinental commercial activity into Asia through the Silk Road (Frankopan 2016). It is interesting to note that the socioenvironmental and ecological dynamics of the origins and initial spread of COVID are still unknown. As stated in the Editorial of this issue, this fact reads as an argument to pay ample attention to the interferences with the sociopolitical and legal, socioeconomic and financial, and sociocultural and welfare dimensions.

The present article makes use of aspects of social quality theory and the social quality approach to assess the impact of the Italian government's efforts to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal government has a critical role in mitigating the effects of the pandemic; however, the scope and efficacy of its interventions depend on the interplay of processes in four main dimensions: (1) sociopolitical and legal; (2) socioeconomic and financial; (3) sociocultural and welfare; and (4) socioenvironmental and ecological. By analyzing relevant processes in these four dimensions, I aim to understand whether the social quality in Italy has increased or decreased due to the pandemic. The fragmentation in the labor market, in healthcare governance, as well as in societal protection have strongly constrained the government interventions, leaving intact and crystallizing existing societal inequalities.

This article describes, from a sociopolitical, socioeconomic, and sociocultural perspective, the governance practices of the COVID-19 epidemic control response in China. We describe that, in line with the “whole of government approach,” strong resource mobilization and control of government departments, companies, and citizen communities has worked efficiently to rapidly contain the epidemic. Community participation at the grassroots level has played a decisive part. We assume that the deeply rooted collectivistic Chinese culture has made residents trust the government's decisions and comply with the prevention and control strategies. We pose some intriguing questions for more analytical comparative research. They concern the normative interpretation of the influences of sociopolitical, economic, and cultural forces, as well as the balance between “collectivism” and “individualism” in societies.

In this introduction, the cases of India, South Africa, and Brazil are connected. The contributions from these countries, in different ways, discuss the dramatic moral impacts of government approaches to the pandemic. The three countries are part of the BRICS platform, in which Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa participate. With 40 percent of the world's population, the BRICS platform concerns a substantial part of the world. The principles of the platform and its mutual “economic, political, cultural an environmental philosophy” are summarized by Marco Ricceri (2019). The members support the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS), and they will contribute to the quality of global development. At the 13th BRICS Summit in September 2021, the New Delhi Declaration was presented (BRICS 2021). This declaration conveys a thorough normative mission statement. It therefore renders an interesting common frame of reference from which to analyze and judge the contributions from the three countries, as well as from China and Russia.

A segmented healthcare system evolved in India by 1990s, whereby the rich population depended on private hospitals while the people at the bottom of the economic pyramid went to the poor-quality public hospitals. In a democracy of equals, unequal access to services became political when COVID-19 began to put pressure on the health system. Corruption that was normalized in a segmented healthcare system could no longer be ignored. To advance the framework of social quality, we examine the corruption that unfolded during the pandemic in India from the perspective of moral foundation theory. We study the issues raised by political parties during the pandemic and court directives responding to citizen grievances. The evidence shows there was inequality of access and that courts had to intervene to try to rectify the situation. In the absence of effective governmental intervention during the pandemic, moral norms become a useful explanatory factor for social quality.

Multiple crises have emerged in South Africa in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. General well-being is in severe danger from the immediate effects of the virus and the longer-term impact of hunger due to a growing economic crisis. While the working-class majority struggle, there is a political struggle for political power playing out among factions in the ruling party. These tensions flared up in the wake of President Jacob Zuma's imprisonment in July 2021, leading to widespread unrest and destruction. These experiences point to a failing economic system that neglected the poor. If this neglect continues, then this unrest may continue. In making this argument, I base my analysis upon the views of political luminaries such as Neville Alexander, Archie Mafeje, and Roger Southall. Their views are linked to the experiences of many South Africans during the pandemic.

This article analyzes the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the lives of the Amazonian populations of Brazil. Following the social quality approach, it inquires into how COVID-19 intertwined with and reinforced underlying trends and inequalities in different life domains expressed in long-term societal complexities, urban–rural dynamics, and environmental transformations. The article finds that the pandemic, following coloniality of power patterns, has been instrumentalized as a necropolitical tool, and has disproportionately impacted certain peoples and territories based on ethnoracial bias. The collapse of the local health system in the State of Amazonas is a systemic burden, not serendipity. A dialogue is proposed between decolonial and social quality approaches to analyze, unveil, and denounce the interplay between the coloniality of power patterns in non-Western contexts.

In the following studies, the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the resilience of communities and the formation of civic activism in Germany and the United Kingdom is analyzed and discussed. In the German study, the expected impact on existing volunteer organizations is explored. In the UK study, by analyzing quantitative data pertaining to (about the determinants of) different categories of mutual aid groups (MAGs) interpretations are made concerning resilience, agility, and civic activist potentialities.

This article explores the determinants of local resilience in the form of local COVID-19 mutual aid groups. These groups were formed to offer mutual help to those who had experienced a loss of social quality. We test a series of hypotheses, considering which conditional factors are most connected to the formation of these groups, particularly focusing on those that influenced the earliest and most resilient local response to the pandemic. The presence of radical environmentalist activists is a better predictor of resilient community responsiveness than either the activity of the local state or the activity of more moderate community-based environmental civil society organizations. Conclusions are presented on the implications of these findings for the future of localism, social quality, and public policy in the United Kingdom.

Has the pandemic weakened civil society and hindered activism and volunteering due to long-lasting restrictions and bans on meetings, protests, and the like? Or have civil society actors been able to respond to these fundamental changes? This is explored here in the case of Germany. Neither weakness nor strength can be deemed a clear outcome of the pandemic for civil society, but different levels of resilience mark opportunities for civil society to overcome the pandemic. Resilience also affects democracy; therefore, the development of civil society during and after the pandemic is investigated in terms of how it has influenced democracy in Germany. This article is based on findings on civic activism resulting from long-term surveys and volunteering conducted prior to the pandemic, together with present and preliminary observations.

The two case studies of Part IV are based on interviews with poor, disadvantaged families in Lahore (Pakistan) and Cincinnati (United States). These analyses in the sociocultural and welfare dimension address the subjective experiences of how the lockdowns resulting from COVID-19 impacted the quality of the circumstances of their daily lives. The analyses of Part III primarily also were oriented around the sociocultural and welfare dimension. They, among others, regarded the impact of the pandemic on community resilience and agency in the United Kingdom and Germany to sustain supportive networks in their respective “civil societies.” By also exploring political “civic activism” and the impact on “democratic resilience,” the observations and discussions here though have become primarily focused on the sociopolitical and legal dimension.

This article represents a qualitative investigation of the vulnerabilities of displaced households in Pakistan caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The analyses are conducted through the lens of social quality theory and the social quality approach according to four societal dimensions that condition household life chances. Our findings reveal that these households reflect a reversal of the sustainable development cycle. They are at risk of being economically unstable, being unable to gain new skills, falling into absolute poverty, increased morbidity rates, and disrupted education. The most severe form of deprivation is the disruption of their networks of social cohesion, leading to greater isolation and marginalization; this is especially true for women and children. The Pakistani government must take immediate and substantive action to improve the situations of these most vulnerable of households.

Connectedness is vital for health and well-being. Families with lower socioeconomic status and of racial and ethnic minority groups experience inequities in social connections compared to families with higher income and of White race in the United States. We aimed to understand how families in lower-income neighborhoods experienced social connectedness and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic and if and how political, economic, and other societal factors influenced social connectedness. We conducted in-depth interviews with nineteen caregivers of young children in Cincinnati, Ohio. Participants had a decreased sense of social connectedness to family and friends but also across all aspects of their lives. The current crisis has exacerbated preexisting societal conditions within the United States. We can learn from these caregivers how best to bolster social connectedness and disrupt social isolation.

As has been extensively shown in this thematic issue, the COVID-19 pandemic has compounded many frictions and shortcomings of quite different natures in various societal fields. Moreover, many problems that has previously been latent and not easy to observe have risen to the surface. In this part, three quite diverging problematics, compounded and exposed by the COVID-19 crisis, are studied and discussed. In order to reveal general patterns, in this introduction we try to reveal what—in an ontological and epistemological sense—precisely their nature is, and how they relate to the studies in the other parts of this thematic issue.

This article offers an analysis of the impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in Japan with regard to the healthcare sector. With unprecedented pressure from a rapidly aging population, state-sponsored initiatives have created new migration streams from Southeast Asia, diversifying attempts to procure healthcare personnel to address labor shortages. The article analyzes the recent evolution of this supply chain nexus and how it was reconfigured during the pandemic. It also highlights the fragile dependency that Japan now has on an emergent nexus with surrounding countries and the strategies it has taken to ameliorate the vagaries of the ongoing pandemic.

Government responses to COVID-19 have dramatically altered the social quality of daily circumstances. Consequently, theoretical questions about social cohesion require recalibration as we explore new models of social quality. Central to this article is trust, one of the fundamental tenets of social cohesion. We present data from interviews with 40 women in midlife (45–64 years) regarding their everyday experiences of “life in lockdown” during the pandemic. Key themes focus on women's (dis)trust in individuals (e.g., politicians, public health experts, family, themselves) and systems (e.g., politics, medicine, the media). This study provides insights into the differential impact of the pandemic in shaping public trust and hence social cohesion—in authority, institutions, and “each other”—with important lessons for how future efforts can rebuild trust in post-pandemic times.

Often when a problem is identified, it is quickly labeled and the process of looking for solutions starts. However, we should spend just as much time thinking about the problem itself. But what exactly should we focus on? Taking the time to think through and reframe problems leads to better problem-solving. The COVID-19 pandemic has been called a global crisis, and rightly so. Yet, there is something to be learned from framing it as a problem, or a series of problems, that provides us with an opportunity to look for different solutions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many hospitals experienced staff turnover, and some nurses even left their jobs to become travel nurses. Clinical staffing challenges provide an example of how reframing may have led to better problem-solving.

In these reflections, instead of just summarizing the contributions on the societal impact of COVID-19 in the countries discussed in this thematic issue, we develop considerations on the nature of its substance and various related methodological issues. This is based especially on the outcomes of Working Paper 17 of the International Association on Social Quality (IASQ 2019) and the study about the conditions for interdisciplinary research in the natural sciences, in the human sciences, and between both fields of knowledge (Westbroek et al. 2020). Both documents were available for the authors of this issue's articles. For understanding the overwhelming COVID-19 pandemic as well the increasing challenges caused by climate change, bio-degeneration, and the ongoing pollution of nature, new steps for bridging the natural and the human sciences are a conditio sine qua non for understanding the complexity of the multidimensionality of critical situations that demand comprehensive approaches.