For this second episode, we spoke with Giancarlo Fiorella, Investigator and Trainer for Latin America at Bellingcat. Giancarlo is also a PhD student at the University of Toronto, writing his thesis on protest policing in Venezuela, focusing on the role of civilian armed groups. During our conversation, we discussed the benefits of open source investigation as well as the impact of the pandemic in Venezuela.

‘OSINT investigation is very beneficial when it comes to investigating human rights abuses, war crime or crimes against humanity.’

‘Some Venezuelan human rights organisations denounced the demonization of refugees by State officials.’

‘Considering the reaction we all had to the pandemic, I am really skeptical that we will be able to deal with the climate change crisis in an orderly effective manner as a species’

For this first episode of our second interview series, we interviewed Jonáš Syrovátka, Program Manager at the Prague Security Studies Institute (PSSI). Mr. Syrovátka primarily works on projects concerning Russian influence activities in the Czech Republic. During our conversation we discussed the ‘infodemic’ amid the pandemic.

‘Conspiracy theories will become especially dangerous when there are specific topics to interact with, such as a vaccine. This is an opportunity for engagement with pre-exisiting scepticism towards vaccination.’

‘Conspiracy websites tried to incorporate the EU's handling of the pandemic into the broader narritve of the EU's failure.’

COVID-19 has been disrupting people’s lives and forcing governments to take measures rapidly to contain the virus and prevent further deaths. It took governments by surprise and revealed their lack of preparedness, leading them to formulate policy responses which engaged with securitisation.To fight the pandemic, authorities have introduced measures that drastically infringed upon citizens’ personal freedoms, starting with their freedom of movement. They engaged in a process of securitising COVID-19 using these exceptional times as a rationale to enact exceptional measures. A glaring example is the introduction of contact tracing apps: for citizens to be able to move around freely again, governments had to find a way to track the virus by identifying contaminated citizens and their contacts. Seen by some as an open door to governments collecting more health data, this measure is questionable in terms of ethics and privacy. This article argues that the introduction of contact tracing apps is the result of a securitisation process that stems from governments’ desire to show that they are taking action and controlling the situation.

For this interview series, Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk are interviewing experts from different backgrounds on the political implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and exploring the consequences the pandemic will have for (geo)political, security, and societal affairs.

After seven episodes, we have produced a succinct analysis of the trends observed so far.

For this seventh episode, we interviewed Francesco Trupia, Research Fellow at the Prague-based Center for Security Analyses and Prevention/ He has a PhD in Political Philosophy from the University of Sofia and works on the societal role of minority groups and democratisation in post-communist Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Caucasus in particular. In our conversation, we discussed the impact of the pandemic on the Balkans and the role of foreign actors in the region. 

‘On a national level, the pandemic began to expose pre-existing structural problems and accelerate democratic backsliding.’

‘Executive competences tend to be expanded and justified in the face of emergency situations.’

For this sixth episode, we interviewed Daniela Pisoiu, Senior Researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP) and expert of the Radicalisation Awareness Network. She has over fifteen years of experience in Islamist, right-wing and left-wing radicalisation, extremism, and terrorism, and is specialised in individual radicalisation processes. Her fieldwork includes interviews with (former) radicals and analyses of court files. In terms of regional focus, she works on Austria and Germany, as well as the Western Balkans and Europe more broadly. In our conversation, we first discussed radicalisation and deradicalisation mechanisms and then the exploitation of the pandemic by extremists. 

‘The pandemic has been exploited by jihadis, presenting the coronavirus as a punishment of Allah for the West, by right-wing extremist movements denouncing a Jewish plot, and by all sort of radicals fuelled with conspiracy theories, which are the first step into indoctrination.’

‘In the Middle East and Africa, the pandemic can increase the importance of terrorism. We often underestimate this, because we tend to be western-centric. In Europe, this crisis accelerating the empowerment of ring-wing radicals.’

‘Crises have always been good market opportunities for radicals to capitalise on.’

For this fifth episode, we interviewed Floris van Straaten, Middle East Editor at NRC Handelsblad, a Dutch daily newspaper. He was previously Asia Editor at the same newspaper and he worked in Pakistan as a freelancer during the 1980s, covering the war in Afghanistan, among other things. In our conversation, we discussed the political and economic consequences of the pandemic for the Middle East.

‘Many governments in the Middle East have used pandemic to increase their already considerable power over their population.’

‘The pandemic exposes inequality.’

‘Finally, the pandemic shows many Middle Eastern countries are even more dependent on oil than we thought and that they need to diversify their economies.’

For this fourth episode, we interviewed Velina Tchakarova, Head of Institute at the Austrian Institute of European and Security Policy (AIES). In our conversation, we discussed the future of the global order and Europe’s role in it.

‘There will be a struggle until the political system finds a new equilibrium and right now, we need more people who have ambitions for our European future, otherwise someone else is going to shape it.’

In this third episode, we are interviewing Belén Rodríguez, Research Associate at the NATO StratCom COE. Rodríguez mainly focuses on Russian ‘information laundering’, a “process [in which] false or deceitful information is legitimised through a network of intermediaries that apply gradually a set of techniques in order to de-contextualise it and obscure the original source”. In our conversation with Rodríguez, we discussed different information laundering techniques, examples of information laundering during the corona crisis, and the future of the NATO-Russia relations. 

“With machine learning and artificial intelligence, disinformation will be even more complicated to debunk, but generally, the reciprocal aims of NATO and Russia should stay the same.”

“One of the biggest geopolitical risks of this crisis is the polarisation of public opinion towards democratic institutions.”

For this interview series, Fabiana Natale and Gilles de Valk are interviewing experts from different backgrounds on the political implications of the COVID-19 pandemic. From their living rooms in France and the Netherlands they will explore the consequences the pandemic will have for (geo)political, security, and societal affairs. This interview series marks the launch of a new type of content for the Security Distillery, one which we hope can provide entertaining and informative analysis of an uncertain and evolving development in global politics.

In this first episode, we are interviewing Matthijs Lok, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the European Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. He recently wrote a piece in which he examined the coronavirus from a historical perspective. As this is the first interview of a larger series, we think it is important to first look at the pandemic from a historical point of view, but also to bridge the gap between social sciences and humanities.

For decades, organizations like The Climate Mobilization have argued that, ‘entering emergency mode is the critical first step to launching the comprehensive mobilization required to rescue and rebuild civilization’ . By using language historically reserved for war, insurrection, or terrorism, climate activists hope to inspire a sense of urgency in governments that have been dragging their feet on making the necessary policy changes. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many in the world lived in blissful ignorance as to what exactly a state of emergency would entail. Its effects on government, society, and our day-to-day were difficult to imagine in the absence of any lived experience. COVID-19 has changed that entirely: as an international community we have learned a powerful lesson in just how quickly everything can change. Now that we are witnessing the real implications of a global emergency, should we still endorse its use in relation to the climate?