COVID-19 has profoundly affected the orderliness, priorities, and practices of individuals, societies, the public, and the international system. The working styles of individuals have changed, while home/remote working models have become widespread worldwide, especially for white-collar workers, and occupational health and safety issues have gained importance for individuals. The measures taken to protect the health of those living within societies brought up the dilemma of the balance between freedoms and the public interest, and changes in public administration were discussed.
While the policies and practices that maintain domestic order in states and the priorities in their foreign policies have changed; thus, it has been observed that what is expected from states has increased during the pandemic. It seems inevitable that these expectations will bring a change in the practices of states both toward their citizens domestically and in their relations with other states abroad after the pandemic. It is expected from the post-pandemic world that security concerns will outweigh expectations of freedom, increase state intervention in individuals’ social and business lives and public policies, and put more emphasis on the concept of state sovereignty. Of course, the pandemic has not only affected individuals and the internal and external working mechanisms of the state but has also deeply shaken the system in which the main international actors interact with each other. In this study, the effects of the pandemic at the level of the individual, the state, and the system, and the expectations for the future created by these effects are discussed.
