{"id":2468,"date":"2020-05-23T12:11:33","date_gmt":"2020-05-23T12:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=2468"},"modified":"2020-05-23T12:11:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-23T12:11:33","slug":"10-things-about-covid-and-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org\/?p=2468","title":{"rendered":"10 Things About Covid And Campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here are a few thoughts about coronavirus and Covid-19. They are coloured by being written from a British perspective. I\u2019ve tried to stick to things that may be generally applicable and haven\u2019t written much about health and social care systems as they will doubtless be subject to evidence-based reviews, as well as campaigns and lobbying with a mixture of influences from national self-interest \u00a0to philanthropy.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try to write a more detailed post on one or two aspects soon. \u00a0I’ll start with the most obvious.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It Is Significant<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Be prepared to rewrite all your strategies in the coming year or so, and probably more than once. Former US Treasury Secretary Laurence Summers, has called coronavirus a \u2018hinge in history\u2019.\u00a0 Writing in the FT<\/a> he said:<\/p>\n

    \u2018The Covid-19 crisis is the third major shock to the global system in the 21st<\/sup> century, following the 2001 terror attacks and the 2008 financial crisis. I suspect it is by far the most significant\u2019.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

    \u20189\/11\u2019 and the 2008 recession will, he argues, \u2018fade over time from popular memory\u2019 but coronavirus will not.\u00a0 Like Munich in 1938, the 1914 assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and the 1929 crash of the stock market, it\u2019s significance will lie in what happens next.<\/p>\n

    He’s probably right, and we don\u2019t know what happens next but one might think about it in three big \u2018buckets\u2019: the impacts of the pandemic itself, in waves or as a chronic problem or both; the consequences of lockdown and other direct national government responses; and those of the recession, possibly depression, which is now unfolding.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Values Differences Will Be In Play<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

      A sign that appeared near the end of my road<\/em><\/p>\n

      The more severe and sustained the sense of threat the more we all embrace Settler-type<\/a> priorities: safety, security, belonging.\u00a0 As Guardian<\/em> journalist Nick Cohen wrote<\/a> in a critique of the Boris Johnson government\u2019s response<\/p>\n

      \u2018the British were locking themselves down days before the government finally accepted the realities of the pandemic. We did so because one aspect of human behaviour remains predictable: we don\u2019t want to die\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n

      So if you now have society-wide visions for \u2018post-covid\u2019 society, the broad order of priority to gain social and political space and traction is first Settler<\/a>, second Prospector, third, Pioneer priorities: meaning the tests are (does it help?) lives and safety, then jobs, opportunities and prosperity, then the bigger picture and a better \u2018new normal\u2019.\u00a0 I\u2019ll unpack this in a longer post but the \u2018values rules\u2019 in the 2008 blog \u2018Campaigning Your Way Out Of Recession<\/a>\u2019 broadly apply.<\/p>\n

      An interesting minor values tweak is that Britain\u2019s Boris Johnson is now on the horns of a bit of a values dilemma, having successfully united libertarian Pioneers and security driven Settlers in opposition to the EU over Brexit, and is now experiencing their opposing reflexes over relaxation of the covid lockdown: much the same dynamic that Pat Dade wrote about<\/a> dividing the US Tea Party.<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. Political Lessons Will Be Drawn<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

        National politicians will also be anxious about survival, prosperity and vision: especially their own.\u00a0 The first round contest will be virus related: the excess deaths in national epidemics.\u00a0 Some will be judged to have had a good outbreak \u2013 probably New Zealand, maybe South Africa, so far South Korea. Others, at present led by countries like the UK<\/a> but maybe to be eclipsed by the US, a disastrous one.\u00a0 The second round is underway and concerns lockdown and management measures and will be a blame-game war.\u00a0 The third will be about political ideas and models (ie political fashion).<\/p>\n

        \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

        UK PM Boris Johnson is unlikely to become an international political role model on covid.\u00a0 He has managed the unlikely feat of uniting right and left wing commentators (here Piers Morgan and John Sweeney, May 19) in criticism.\u00a0 62,000 dead is closing on the 67,000 civilians who died in Britain WW2.<\/em><\/p>\n

        Will a green sustainable recovery be the new big default idea? \u00a0Will populist nationalist isolationism and exceptionalism (as per Johnson<\/a>, Trump<\/a>) be seen to have succeeded or failed?\u00a0 Will we (politicians) \u201call be interventionists now\u201d? \u00a0Or will neoliberalism survive in a form of New Interventionism?\u00a0 Maybe none of these but a new default truism\u00a0is very likely. It will be chosen by politicians based on what is seen to have worked in political terms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

          \n
        1. New Behaviours Will Outlast Interruption Better Than New Ideas <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

          It\u2019s well known that unavoidable interruption of an old behaviour is one of the most powerful factors facilitating the uptake of a new behaviour.\u00a0 People then take on \u2018new ideas\u2019 which are rationalisations of their new behaviours.\u00a0 They are much less likely to take a new idea, rationalise it and so adopt a new behaviour.\u00a0So while \u2018lockdown\u2019 is a massive interruption of business as usual and one of its effects is to give people interested in issues a lot of time and space to come up with new ideas, few of them are likely to lead to sustained new behaviours if they have not become established by the time a \u2018new normal\u2019 sets in.<\/p>\n

          This is why it was a canny move for city mayors to quickly start narrowing streets for cars<\/a> to give more space for social distancing among pedestrians and to allow more cycling.\u00a0 Once locked in, such changes are unlikely to be reversed.\u00a0 The message for campaigns is \u2018act now\u2019.<\/p>\n

          Many people in developed countries have experienced increased awareness of nature and a cleaner environment during lockdown but unless this new perspective is translated into behaviours that outlast relaxation of lockdown it may evaporate, leaving just a wistful memory.<\/p>\n

          \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

           <\/p>\n

            \n
          1. Some Things Will Die Or Never Recover <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

            Not just people but businesses and whole economic sectors and while countries may not \u2018die\u2019 some may not recover at least for generations.\u00a0 Custom and finance is the lifeblood of business and if the drought is too long, businesses die and if enough die, sectors vanish, other things attract the money, and grow in their place. \u00a0These \u2018structural\u2019 changes are mostly independent of individual behaviour change but will change \u2018choice architecture\u2019. Some will create windows of opportunity for change in the public interest, others may close off funding streams to NGOs.<\/p>\n

            When Zoom was reported<\/a> to be worth more than seven of the world\u2019s largest airlines combined, and Shell cut its dividend<\/a> for the first time since WW2, \u00a0it made headlines around the world.\u00a0 Set alongside widespread working from home and reports of companies seeing no fall in productivity, and struggling airlines<\/a>, it\u2019s easy to imagine that global tourism as well as business air travel and the market for conventional office space could be severely impacted.\u00a0\u00a0 On May 1 the FT reported<\/a> that a PwC survey found 25% of CFOs were \u2018already thinking of cutting back on real estate\u2019 and half of US office searches were on hold.\u00a0 Convert unwanted office space to renewably powered vertical farms<\/a>?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

              \n
            1. A Green Recovery Is Not Inevitable<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

              \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

              A chorus of calls from economists (eg Joseph Stiglitz and 200 others<\/a>), often echoed by financial commentators<\/a>, have endorsed the idea of a \u2018green recovery\u2019.\u00a0 They want governments to take the dislocation effect of shut-down and the increased appetite for intervention as an opportunity to speed up a green transition and discourage fossil fuel use.\u00a0 In April the EC\u2019s Frans Timmermans pledged<\/a> that all EU covid-recovery spend will be green, and the French government tied airline support<\/a> to cutting carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

              \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

              From the FT<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

              But quiet fossil fuel lobbying may be having a big effect behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

              The UK has just approved the largest<\/a> new gas-power station in Europe and eight EU states have voiced support<\/a> for the \u201crole of natural gas in a climate-neutral Europe\u201d.\u00a0 As it stands, environmentalists will no doubt win the \u2018air war\u2019 on this but may lose the ground war inside governments.<\/p>\n

              Adding more fact-filled arguments from economists in favour of a green recovery may make no difference. Qualitative research to translate the very Track 2<\/a> analytical arguments of learned economists into Track 1 intuitively understandable public propositions would be a good and urgently-needed investment.\u00a0 (And a lockdown is a very good time to do such research as respondents are more available online or by phone).<\/p>\n

                \n
              1. There Will Be Idiosyncratic Winners<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                We may come to remember the pandemic by some singular but for now esoteric changes, such as emblematic technologies, like the \u2018non-stick frying pans\u2019 (not now seen as a great thing environmentally) cited as a \u2018spin-off\u2019 from the Space Race.\u00a0 Copper is perhaps too obvious an example.\u00a0 Whereas in one study Covid-19 survived for up to three days on plastic or stainless steel, it lasted only<\/a> four hours on copper.\u00a0 The metal (and to an extent alloys like brass) has been known as a cleaning agent for centuries and kills bacteria such as MRSA.\u00a0 Expect to see a (return-to) trend for copper on high-touch surfaces like handrails in hospitals and mass transit.<\/p>\n

                \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

                ehealth.eletsonline.com<\/em><\/a> \u2018world\u2019s first anti-microbial copper train\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

                HEPA filters and personalised air space<\/a> in public auditoria, ships and aircraft might be another, and of course a whole string of redesigns in hospitals (a comeback for physical isolation hospitals?) and in health settings. But it will probably be something else that gets remembered as an \u2018explainer\u2019, probably something that becomes familiar and needs an orgin, or something that vanished \u2018because of covid\u2019. Some suggest it will be e-bikes.<\/p>\n

                  \n
                1. Knowledge Politics May Finally Be Plucked From Obscurity<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

                  Because the pandemic has dominated news coverage for such an extended period and the virus is an invisible foe understandable only through science, normally obscure areas of study such as epidemiology and the nature of scientific \u2018uncertainty\u2019 have been gradually exposed to wider audiences.<\/p>\n

                  Covid has tested the relationship between science and politics. The UK and US have struggled because Johnson and Trump have cultivated a populist base fed on simple solutions to complex problems. \u00a0Covid trapped them both in an issue where evidence could not be gainsaid by using values dog-whistles, and unlike Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel, both floundered.<\/p>\n