Bioeconomic Peace Research and Policy

Abstract

Abstract We argue for viewing COVID-19 as an additional instance of bioeconomic interaction in an ongoing history of human relations with the rest of nature. We assert that COVID-19 and other increasingly frequent zoonotic pandemic diseases are a further example of global public bads (GPBs), which are collectively provoking the transition from an extensive to an intensive economic growth model characterized by the provision of corresponding global public goods (GPGs) and sigmoid growth. We describe how these dynamics map on to the classic production–predation dichotomy of peace and conflict economics and call for that dichotomy to be extended to the relationship between the human and nonhuman worlds. Finally, we argue that peace economists are particularly well-positioned to extend their research to diagnose human–nonhuman peace and conflict.