Soft Power and European Technocracy at the Time of Covid-19: Suggestions and Outlines for a Geopolitics of Expertise

The fight against SARS-CoV-2 represents an opportunity for large-scale worldwide confrontation between political leaders and policy-makers with science and technical expertise. In terms of a possible geopolitics of expertise, it is undeniable that the soft power of populist-led countries, such as Brazil, India, or the United States under Trump's leadership, has received major setbacks precisely because it has taken incomprehensible decisions without regard to expert opinion. Our argument is that those who are able to manage more effectively the phase of exit from the pandemic crisis and to start a truly significant recovery (not only economic) will acquire considerable credit in the eyes of the international community. Within this framework, the institutions of the European Union have an opportunity for their revival, which is only partially mortgaged: important margins remain for making the most of its sui generis institutional conformation, and in an unprecedented way. More in details, in this chapter we: a) Try to highlight, also through the reference to extra-European experiences, how the Covid-19 management could have represented the opportunity for the European Union to found a counter-narrative based on scientific and technical skills that can be considered as supporting elements of a soft power capable of shaping the geopolitical order of the future; b) We define the problems for which this has not happened: especially regard to the illiberal inclination that some European states have assumed in recent years (and that the management of the pandemic has further accentuated); c) Finally we highlight how the narrative based on the conceptual split between democracy and liberalism determines, more or less consciously, an emphasis on the technocratic dimension of the European Union.