State and the public choice: the framework of post-coronavirus reality
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed fundamental problems in the functioning of national societies, which require intensive scientific research. COVID-19 predetermined the growing importance of political and economic approaches to the interpretation of basic principles of the functioning of future post-coronavirus reality. The societal crisis, which has been a consequence of the ineffectiveness of the state in preventing extreme threats to the life and health of citizens such as COVID-19, has actualized the “new normal” problem, which is being actively discussed by experts from international research and practical organizations. The post-coronavirus reality will begin to form after the COVID-19 pandemic and will be based on different principles. The author interprets it in the context of restoring the societal integrity of national communities under the following conditions: (1) reorientation of formal institutions at the state's disposal towards the priority of human-centred principles in order to restore public consensus, trust in the government and its policies; (2) aggregation of public choice, taking into account, first of all, the preferences and values of households (ordinary citizens), which will minimize its distortion in the future; (3) raising the state's expert functions on the example of adequate institutionalization of conditions for eliminating the negative consequences of the societal crisis. The author stresses the importance of rethinking the phenomenon of partnership between the state and private business as a means of improving the quality of the state's aggregation of public choice, assessing the effectiveness of alternative options for the institutional structure of the new reality, adjusting the functions of the state in relation to a society with universal values at its core, taking into account the realities of the post-coronavirus world. To test the obtained results, the author offers a model of an “institutional matrix” that can be used to institutionalize a mutually-beneficial partnership between the state and private business in order to minimize the uncertainty of post-coronavirus reality (“new normal”).