The New Futures of Exclusion

"This book is a fundamental contribution to the academic literature on the Covid-19 pandemic, offering a much-needed critical counterbalancing to the orthodox view. But, even more importantly, it is a dramatic appeal: as much as we all just want to move on, we need to collectively confront the global trauma of 2020-2022, as difficult as it may be, or we will pay an even higher price down the road.”
- Thomas Fazi, Journalist, and author of The Covid Consensus

“A compelling critique of pandemic authoritarianism.”

 - Lee Jones, Professor of Political Economy and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London


Based upon global data and following on from Lockdown: Social Harm in the COVID-19 Era, this book discusses the rise of surveillance capitalism and new forms of control and exclusion throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. It particularly addresses the use of vaccine passports, mandates and the new forms of capital extraction andpolitical control that emerged throughout the pandemic. The book also explicates how the ‘vaccine hesitant’ became marginalized in both mainstream discourse and through regulatory interventions. Whilst the book addresses the wider political economy within which so-called ‘anti-vaxxers’ were ostracized, it also explores the complex nature of their sentiments. The book closes by considering The New Futures of Exclusion, outlining the forms of surveillance and control that may be implemented in the future particularly in light of the challenges brought by global warming and the energy transition. It is a broadly accessible text, particularly appealing to policymakers, general readers and academics in sociology, political sociology, politics, human geography, political economy, criminology, social policy, psychology, history, and infectious diseases and medicine.

Daniel Briggs is Professor of Criminology at Northumbria University, UK.


Luke Telford is Lecturer in Criminal Justice & Social Policy at the University of York, UK.

Anthony Lloyd is Associate Professor in Criminology and Sociology at Teesside University, UK. 

Anthony Ellis is Associate Professor in Criminology at the University of Lincoln, UK.