Covid-19 as a window to social inequalities; the case of the BAME communities in the UK

Abstract

It is becoming increasingly evident that environmental problems such as climate change and global warming, and global public health constitute a great threat to our societies. No doubt, these problems will continue to be persistent, and intensity increase without a good collaboration between the government and people. Good governance ultimately depends on public support and that increases the need for public participation and increasing knowledge about the processes underlying citizens' attitude to government policy. In fact, many studies have shown that public support for environmental policies to a large extent depends on citizens' trust in politicians and the political system. For instance, the effects corona virus pandemic which dominated the whole of 2020 and major parts of 2021 and held the whole world to stagnation has revealed a lot of discrepancies on how people respond to government decisions and how these policies affected people. Social inequality on the other hand is believed to have been systematically rooted in government agencies, policies and institutions and the discussions around it has only been scratched on the surface. This study will focus on the relationship between citizens' normative views about government responsibility and their support for government decisions on environment issues to achieve social justice, using covid 19 as a case study. Related literatures will be critically reviewed to enable us lay concrete emphasis on our discussion.