To the issue of vaccine nationalism in COVID-19 era

Problem setting. The new coronavirus pandemic is one of the greatest challenges in contemporary history, especially in the face of unprecedented globalization. Mankind has been waiting for almost a year since the beginning of the pandemic for the most effective way to fight against the virus – vaccines. Over the last two years, such concepts as “vaccine races”, “vaccine nationalism”, “vaccine diplomacy” have been spread in the international political and scientific discourse. However, in Ukraine these concepts have not become the subject of research yet. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The researched issues have not attracted the attention of Ukrainian scientific community yet, so the basis of our work consists of foreign scientists’ publications, which were, inter alia, done by L. Gruszczynski (Lukasz Gruszczynski), A. Filipovich (Aleksa Filipović), P. Hotez (Peter J. Hotez), I. Yanqiu Rachel Zhou, A. Kobieriecka, M. M. Kobieriecki, Z. Mammedyarov and some others. In addition to that, Academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine S. Komisarenko has studied the problems and prospects of creating Ukrainian vaccine against COVID-19, rightly noting that it is a matter of national security. The target of the research. The target of this research is to examine the content, the scope and genesis of “vaccine nationalism” concept, practical manifestations of this phenomenon as well as the relationship between vaccine diplomacy and vaccine nationalism. Article’s main body. Over the past two years, nation-states have resorted to policies of economic protectionism, and then to so-called “vaccine nationalism”, which we inclined to analyze in three guises: 1) “vaccine races” – at the stage of development and testing; 2) “vaccine egoism” – at the stage of contracting and use of vaccines; 3) the issue of mutual recognition of vaccines. Thus, the article examines the meaning of the concept of vaccine nationalism in its broadest sense. It has been emphasized, however, that vaccine nationalism is not a new phenomenon in international relations as a similar situation was observed, in particular, during the H1N1 pandemic. It has been also illustrated that vaccine nationalism usually characterizes the most economically developed states. Vaccine-producing countries to carry out their foreign policy tasks, as well as recipient countries to ensure their biological security resort to “vaccine diplomacy”. However, there is no unanimous scientific approach to the definition of both “vaccine diplomacy” and “vaccine nationalism” around the globe. It has been established that with the spread of COVID-19, protection of state sovereignty and national security has come to the fore in comparison with the obligation to cooperate and the principle of sovereign equality, which are jus cogens and erga omnes. On the other hand, “my nation first” policy is not directly prohibited by the letter of international law. Conclusions. In the modern world, there are simultaneous phenomena of globalization and deglobalization. Actually, to denote the trend of deglobalization in the field of countering COVID-19 such a concept as “vaccine nationalism” is used. The “vaccine race” can be seen as a rivalry between two political regimes: on the one hand, liberal democracy in the face of the United States and its allies, and on the other hand – states with authoritarian political regimes (China and Russia). However, geopolitical rivalry, the struggle for extension of spheres of influence can be an effective means of combating the pandemic in practice. The concept of vaccine nationalism is closely linked to “vaccine diplomacy”, which is used by vaccine donor countries as a method of achieving their national interests. It was concluded that it is important to ensure sovereignty and biological security of Ukraine by launching the production of vaccines against infectious diseases. That will also strengthen the position of Ukrainian diplomacy.

Challenging the theoretical framework of the totalitarian syndrome

The article is of methodological nature and aims to evaluate the content validity of Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew K. Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome, that is, the extent to which this theoretical framework accurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. It introduces the critical analysis of the individual concepts extracted from the totalitarian syndrome as the indicators of totalitarianism and the model as a whole as a research tool for measuring political regimes. The paper begins with the discussion on an alternative concept of totalitarianism formulated by Nicholas Timasheff to illustrate the context in which the authors of the theoretical categories of totalitarianism created them. Then, the article goes on to analyze the nature and major characteristics of Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome as well as these reviews of Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy, which addressed the validity of the model. Social scientists have widely criticized Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome. The most serious objection concerns the non-specific essential features collected and combined to define totalitarianism. The taxonomic nature of the model has allowed researchers, who blindly adopted the framework, to classify discretionarily political regimes of numerous states as totalitarian. Friedrich and Brzezinski failed to advance any clear criteria for coding. They did not establish a line between meeting and not meeting the listed essential features. Furthermore, it is unknown what character the features enumerated under this syndrome have. This generates a question if the six “indicators” are essential, distinctive, significant, co-decisive, contours, features, factors, frames, pillars, or mechanisms. Although Friedrich and Brzezinski’s totalitarian syndrome fulfilled a prominent educational role mostly for US citizens by showing that there could be social worlds completely different from those in which one lives, the proposed understanding of totalitarianism is insignificant in defining such regimes. This theoretical framework inaccurately represents the social phenomena to which it refers. The paper finishes with the argument against applying the syndrome to scrutinize political regimes because of its considerably limited content validity.

Thought and Political Judgment

Hannah Arendt’s claim that thinking is the last defense against the moral outrages of criminal political regimes sets the problematic of good and evil in relief. Human freedom, Paul Ricœur reminds us, is responsible for evil. The avowal of the evil of violence is thus the condition of our consciousness of the freedom to act anew.Aesthetic experience’s lateral transposition onto the planes of ethics and politics highlights our capacity to respond to exigencies in apposite ways. Exemplary representations of the good, the right, and the justexpress a desire for being. Eros is accordingly the law of every work, word, deed, or act that answers to a difficulty, challenge, or crisis. Bound to living experiences, thought attains its true height through interrogating, demystifying, and vacating frozen norms, standards, and mores. Judgment actualizes thought’s liberating effects in answer to the demands of the situations in which we find ourselves.

Power Sharing and Labour Market: An Autopsy of the Legal Politicisation of the Post-War Congolese Labour Market

This study analyses the legal aspect of the politicisation of labour market by power-sharing political regime in post-war the transition. Exploring the case of the Congo transition from 2003 to 2006 after the 1998-2002 war, it covers gaps in the literature on the reconstruction of labour markets in post-conflict countries which has paid little attention to the impacts of power-sharing political regimes on post-war labour market reconstructions. It reveals that existing studies overlooked to explain how these power-sharing political regimes can legally and legitimately politicise labour markets. Drawing on Levitt's notion of the legality of power-sharing and theories on African states, this paper argues that although the politicisation of labour market is often decried, the current trend of implementing power-sharing regimes in post-war African countries results in the politicisation of their labour markets. This paper further argues that Congolese post-war rebuilding policies, namely the Pretoria Agreement and the constitution of the transition (2003-2006), legitimated and legalised the politicisation of the Congolese public sector labour market from 2003 to 2006. These arguments have emerged from the results of qualitative research conducted in Kinshasa from 2016 to 2017 and from 2018 to 2019. The results inform that the Congolese public labour market was legally politicised, peculiarly characterised by plethora of decision makers, and purely disorganised during the 2003-2006 transition. These realities had led to the failure of the Congolese public market reforms at that time.

ELECTORAL POLITICAL SCIENCE: FROM APPEARANCE TO AUTONOMIZATION

The article considers the development of electoral political science as a new direction of Ukrainian political science. It is noted that in connection with the democratization of post-Soviet political regimes, there is an objective need to conduct electoral research, which should explain the peculiarities of voter behavior and the prospects for the use of electoral technologies. The origins of electoral research in American political science (P. Lazarsfeld, B. Berelson, G. Goda, E. Katz) and their perspectives in the context of possible autonomy in Ukrainian political science are shown. The contribution of specific foreign and domestic scientists to the development of electoral political science is highlighted. It is concluded that in Ukraine electoral political science as a scientific discourse emerged in the last decade of the twentieth century almost "from scratch" and is now formed as an autonomous branch of domestic political science.