The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Globalization

IS GLOBALISATION COMING TO AN END?
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Introduction
Many people globally have developed a general feeling that globalization has come to its ultimate end and a new order is being installed in place. This general feeling of a lot to globalization is based on the fact that there has been experienced slowed financial and investment flows increased nationalism and protectionist policies, wars in trade activities, and the passing of anti-immigration policies over the recent past. Besides, many more people remain dissatisfied with the high levels of unemployment and inequality, especially during this globalization period. However, the main question is whether globalization is coming to an end. Considering the core features of globalization, integration and interdependence among countries against the flow of goods and financial services between nations, we are instead compelled to conclude that globalization is accelerating at a faster rate rather than declining. This paper aims to examine why people think that globalization is coming to an end and, in turn, provide more reasons as to why globalization will continue to accelerate despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reasons people think globalization is ending
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Two main reasons have compelled the majority to believe that globalization has ended. First, the world has experienced a significant setback in slowed economic growth (James, 2009). Instead, the development of the economy is characterized more financially with increased debts and monetary activism (Robb, 2007). These changes have led to central banks of states pumping cash into their economies by purchasing assets such as bonds and equities to sustain international growth and expansivity.
Secondly, the negative consequences of globalization are much more evident in society with unequal ownership of wealth, multinationals dominating the economies and increased dispersion of global chains being experienced daily (Held, 2002). As a result, these issues have increased the political temperatures between nations that have a potentially harmful effect on the development of globalization. Therefore, the global financial crisis met with a poor and inconclusive response. Nobody mandated to shape globalization makes people generally feel that globalization is on its deathbed.
COVID-19 pandemic and globalization
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, new uncertainty came into being that has brought about protectionism as a nationalist agenda (Sułkowski, 2020). Globalization is experiencing a threat in these COVID-19 times, with each government struggling with the rate of spread of the virus by limiting the international flow of goods and people. Similarly, the imposition of border closures and strict immigration laws amidst the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in disruptions in the global supply chains, with poverty and unemployment resulting (Song and Zhou, 2020). Countries and continents such as Africa that mainly relied on imports for finished products and goods were hit hard by these COVID-19 retainment measures.
Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a different fear and uncertainty among people, resulting in the development of new beliefs and behaviors (Sforza and Steininger, 2...