COVID-19 AND THE THEORIES OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

This article investigates the Covid-19 crisis prevalent all over the world from

three dominant theories of international relations: neorealism, neoliberal

institutionalism and social constructivism. The policies being taken globally,

regionally and internationally by relevant states and other actors have been

investigated from each of their perspectives. The study also tries to predict how

the future policies can be based on the roles of actors or institutions related

to the aforementioned theories. While neorealism looks at the pandemic as

a traditional interstate competition under the rules of self-help and anarchy,

neoliberal institutionalism emphasises on the roles of different institutional

endeavours and governance structures. Social constructivism follows a different

approach and brings in the dynamics of intersubjective identities, collective

measures and normativity. In order to present a holistic analysis, the paper

compares and contrasts the situation with other similar events like the outbreak

of the Spanish Influenza in the previous century or other major epidemics.