The governance shock doctrine: Civic space in the pandemic

Abstract

Motivation: Emergencies heighten societies' need to be governed. Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic put systems of public governance under severe pressure across the globe. Civic freedoms were widely curtailed for public health reasons. Scarce resources needed to be allocated swiftly, with little opportunity for debate. Purpose: In settings characterized by authoritarianism, violent conflict, and restricted civic space, relations between governments, civil society, and citizens at best tend to be fragile and fraught even in "normal" times. What happens when these settings are rocked by a profound shock such as the onset of a global pandemic? Methods and approach: This article is based on research on civic space and civic action shortly after the onset of the pandemic in three such settings-Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Civil society advocates in each country tracked and interpreted events in real time, debated their responses, supplemented their own knowledge through key informant interviews, and compared experiences across countries. Findings: I argue that the three governments' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic constitute a "governance shock doctrine," based on the premise that shocks bring responses from the powerful that advance certain agendas. This patterned phenomenon, visible across the three countries, consists of "securitization" of the public health emergency, suppression of dissent, extension and centralization of executive powers, curtailment of press freedoms, and tightened regulation of civic space, including online space. Civic activism navigated or combated these attacks in various ways. Policy implications: Measures adopted in emergency situations tend to persist, threatening to lock civil society into living with pandemic-era restrictions. Preventing this should be a global priority, and especially important where authoritarianism already looms. An energetic mobilization among national and international actors to reassert and protect civic space is needed if the erosion of civil liberties and normalization of autocratic governance wrought by the political-military apparatus in so many countries during the COVID-19 pandemic is not to become permanent, and if the inspired and progressive innovations in organic civic activism over the 2020-2021 crisis period are to survive and flourish.

Repertoires of citizen action in hybrid settings

“…On the OECD Fragility Index all are ranked as highly fragile in terms of security issues, meaning threats of violence still loom large (OECD, 2020). And each country has experienced limited civic space, which worsened further under COVID‐19 (McGee, 2023). In 2021, the CIVICUS Monitor, which measures civic space, characterized Mozambique, Nigeria, and Pakistan all as “repressed,” while Myanmar was downgraded from “repressed” the previous year to “closed” (CIVICUS, 2021).…”

“…Research on closing civic space under COVID-19 found that, even as civic space grew even more constricted, such groups still played vital roles, often shifting to new areas of focus made more salient by the pandemic, such as health, livelihoods, or education (McGee, 2023). Across the countries, professional associations of doctors and nurses demanded greater protection and delivery of health services.…”

What makes “difficult” settings difficult? Contextual challenges for accountability

“…The COVID‐19 pandemic has further exacerbated these tendencies of simultaneous repression and polarization (McGee, 2023). In Nigeria, A4EA research suggested that:

the shoot‐at‐sight directives to security operatives to shoot any person that tries to escape from quarantine and isolation centres, deploying maximum force including military action to enforce compliance with safety protocols such as wearing of face masks, social distancing and ban on public gatherings—compounded by the overzealous conduct of security forces during the lockdown evince how securitized emergency measures are causing unwarranted fatalities, violating human rights and shrinking the civic space (Ibezim‐Ohaeri & Ibeh, 2020, p. 11).

At the same time, civic space is restricted selectively—it is open for those advancing identity‐based polarization agendas: for example, the Pakistan government was “unwilling, or unable to rein in religious gatherings and protests during the lockdown” (Khan et al, 2020, p. 9).…”

“…Their outlook and behaviour reflect their coping and resilience mechanisms rather than challenging powerful actors to meet their needs. This is not to say that people are inert; people do undertake a range of political actions to express their discontent through cultural voice, political protest, or formal electoral processes (see Gaventa, 2023; Nazneen, 2023; McGee, 2023). Indeed, the focus of the A4EA research programme was on instances of social and political action which did occur, albeit in unexpected ways and places (Anderson et al, 2022; Joshi, 2019).…”

Citizen action for accountability in challenging contexts: What have we learned?

“…Continuing the theme of how citizens mobilize to make claims and express voice in difficult contexts, the article by McGee (2023), which largely focuses on civic space, repression, and centralization of authority tightened under COVID-19, also shows that even in such conditions, civic action remained strong, using a combination of strategies.…”