Response to governmental COVID-19 restrictions: the role of informal institutions

Abstract

This paper explains how informal institutions influence the reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic and the response to formal restrictions. I claim that it is not enough to introduce countermeasures, as individuals must follow them if they are to be effective. The acceptance of such measures is reflected in individuals' degrees of mobility decrease and contact reduction, the aims of governmental restrictions. I identify a group of attitudes connected with individuals' responses that differ across countries. They are associated with social relations and approaches to dealing with problems. The analysis confirms that formal restrictions can be seen as successful only if they are supported by strong informal institutions. In some cases, they even define individuals' reactions more than formal recommendations. The findings are useful not only for explaining the special case of reaction to pandemic restrictions but also for investigating what generally determines individuals' compliance with formal rules.

A polycentric approach for pandemic governance: nested externalities and co-production challenges

“…How the pathogen spreads across the population will depend on a vast number of context-specific factors that scientists and planners cannot access and process. Both formal (legal, political, and economic) and informal (cultural, religious, and social) institutions shape beliefs, attitudes, incentives, and behavior (Bentkowska, 2021). The combinatorial possibility of these institutions is immense, and as a result, people's motivations, aspirations, attitudes, and behaviors are diverse.…”

“…On the other hand, for the reasons discussed before, large governments (states) also lack the knowledge and means to internalize externalities from the top down (Ostrom, 2012). With regard to pandemic response, government policies meant to guide social behavior are only effective insofar as citizens trust their authorities (Bentkowska, 2021). Without public trust and mechanisms of self-monitoring in place, governments face prohibitive monitoring and sanctioning costs to implement such policies.…”

“…An ‘optimal’ solution generated in an institutional vacuum that bypasses such processes cannot be considered to be validated, regardless of their scientific merit. So, they are unlikely to be accepted widely (Bentkowska, 2021; Ostrom, 2000).…”

“…Global cooperation from national governments and a unified worldwide effort are often seen as the only paths to ending a pandemic (UN News, 2020). Moreover, such analyses overlook the roles of informal institutions such as culture and social relations in influencing societal response to both the pandemic and formal governmental restrictions (Bentkowska, 2021; Rayamajhee, 2020; Rayamajhee and Paniagua, 2021). Since pandemics present large-scale externalities, policy analysts tend to treat pandemic challenges as homogenous problems to be solved at a national or global level, disregarding institutional diversity and heterogeneity of challenges.…”

“…Where the roles of non-state actors are considered, they are typically viewed as passive responders of government policies. Only a handful of studies pay attention to the proactive role of non-state actors (Bentkowska, 2021; Rayamajhee, 2020; Rayamajhee et al ., 2021; Storr et al ., 2021) or sub-national (e.g. state and local) governmental actors (Choutagunta et al ., 2021) in pandemic response.…”