Political institutions and policy responses during a crisis

Abstract

Do countries with differing political institutions respond differently to a national crisis? The coronavirus pandemic, where almost all countries were hit by the same crisis in a short span of time, provides a rare opportunity to answer this question. For a sample of 125 countries, we use high frequency data on two measures of policy response-(i) containment policies, relating to closure of public spaces and restrictions on movement of people, and (ii) health policies, relating to public information campaigns, testing and contact tracing, to examine their policy response to the crisis. We show that: first, non-democracies have more stringent containment and health policies prior to their first COVID-19 case. However, after registering their first case, democracies either close this gap (in containment policies), or surpass non-democracies (in health policies) within a week. Second, policy responses do not differ by governance systems (presidential or parliamentary) in democracies. However, elected leaders who performed better in the last election or face their next election farther in the future are more aggressive in their policy response. Third, democracies with greater media freedom respond more slowly in containment policies, but are more aggressive in health policies. Lastly, more conducive political norms (such as trust in the elected government) systematically predict a more aggressive response in both containment and health policies. Our analysis therefore suggests that political institutions and the incentives of the political leaders embedded therein, significantly shape the policy response of governments to a national crisis.

COVID-19 and democracy: a scoping review

“…These countries exhibited the shortest outbreak response time and the most extensive daily average tests per thousand. Chiplunkar and Das [ 50 ] show that non-democracies (Polity IV) impose more stringent policies (OxCGRT) prior to their first COVID-19 case, but democracies close the gap in containment policies and surpass non-democracies in health policies within a week of registering their first case. Democracies with greater media freedom respond more slowly in containment policies, but more aggressively in health policies.…”

Variation in Global Policy Responses to COVID-19: A Bidirectional Analysis

“…Considering that local heterogeneity in the exposure of contagion risk hindered the efficacy of regional non-pharmaceutical interventions in Italy [45], this triggers questions about how to include local factors in the effectiveness analysis of policy responses. The magnitude of policy responses differs by the category of political institutions [46]. Should future research be combined with institutional contexts, the global picture for combating the pandemic could be more vivid and convincing.…”

Economic geography of contagion: a study of COVID-19 outbreak in India

“…Milani ( 2021 ) shows how social connectedness across countries explains the cross-country similarity in social responses to COVID-19 pandemic. In the pre-vaccine phase of the contagion, the most common strategy practiced by any government was that of lockdown, which is complemented by health policies whose implementation and success in curbing the contagion varied across countries (Chiplunkar and Das 2021 ; Qiu et al 2020 ). Lockdown policies affect economies in various nuanced ways.…”