Global solidarity as a non-anthropocentric, radical relational self-interest: the COVAX facility and governance of wicked problems in late global capitalism

The COVID-19 pandemic has been labelled a “wicked problem” encompassing a series of crises that challenged governance strategies used in late global capitalism. As a case study, the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) facility exemplifies mainstream governance thinking that has led to self-defeating responses, framed within the logic of late capitalist liberal nationalism and coloniality. We argue that governance thinking about global problems requires an approach that can transcend this logic and is capable of embracing a deeply interconnected world. Despite its “vaccine equity” narrative, COVAX did not produce an egalitarian approach where deep – even biological – interconnection could be premised. The recent global pandemic was especially damaging to the most vulnerable relational human selves (the poorest people in the Global South and the lower classes of the rich North). In this paper, we propose that a radical relational perspective can help us visualize people as relational selves and embodied organic matter, embedded in their environment(s), and co-creating their contexts. This frames what we theorize as a substantive type of solidarity among non-anthropocentric relational selves with decolonial potential, which extends beyond national borders, where governance of wicked problems embraces the responsibility to “fail better” (Selg, Sootla & Klasche, 2023).