10 THESES ON DEMOCRACY AND COVID-19
Keywords:
Authoritative Regimes, COVID-19, Democracy Pandemic, Herd-immunity, Lockdowns, Popularists, VaccinationsAbstract
COVID-19 has revealed a variety of challenges to nation states around the world.This essay seeks to see what were the actual differences between democracies and authoritative regimes in responding to the diverse challenges.Matters of transparency and accountability are certainly more in evidence in democracy, but some believe that in health crises authoritative regimes are more efficient.Proposing ten theses this essay sifts through the data we can now claim as instructive measuring whether civil liberties are in fact conducive to public health.Democracies do noticeably well.Still, as vaccination distribution studies emerge, on the question of the most marginalized within nations and across the globe, we find neither governance structure predictably responsive.Rarely are the poor well served in health crises.
References
“Democracies Contain Epidemics most Effectively,” The Economist, (6 June 2020),https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/06/06/democracies-contain-epidemics-most-effectively.
“Diseases Like Covid-19 are Deadlier in Non-democracies,” The Economist, (18 February 2020), https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/18/diseases-like-covid-19-are-deadlier-in-non-democracies
“Hero who Told the Truth’: Chinese Rage over Corona virus Death of Whistle blower Doctor,” The Guardian February 7, 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang
“Out in the Open; Covid-19 and Democracy, “The Economist, (6 June 2020),https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mlin_m_bostcoll&id=GALE|A625734606&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=b3606b59
“Trump Administration Had No Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution Plan,” Reuters (January 24, 2021) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-klain/trump-administration-had-no-coronavirus-vaccine-distribution-plan-white-house-idUSKBN29T0FY
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famine: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Andrea Vicini, “COVID-19: A Crisis and a Tragedy—What’s Next,” Theological Studies 82. 1, (March 2021) 116-137https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921995850
Ariana Berengaut, “Democracies Are Better at Fighting Outbreaks,” The Atlantic (February 24, 2020) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-democracies-are-better-fighting-outbreaks/606976/
Bruno Mégarbane, et al., “Is Lockdown Effective in Limiting SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic Progression? A Cross-Country Comparative Evaluation Using Epidemiokinetic
Tools, "Journal of General Internal Medicine36 3 (2021)746-752. doi:10.1007/s11606-020-06345-5
Carl Benedikt Frey, Chinchih Chen, and Giorgio Presidente, “Democracy, Culture and Contagion: Political Regimes and Countries Responsiveness to Covid-19,” (May 13 2020) https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/democracy-culture-and-contagion-political-regimes-and-countries-responsiveness-to-covid-19/
Charles Powell, “Sleeping Sickness: Will Covid-19 Transform Democracies in the Long Term?,” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5870, 2020, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A6376332 06/AONE?u=mlin_m_bostcoll&sid=AONE&xid=cf2c701d.
Damien Bol, Marco Giani, André Blais, and Peter John Loewen, “The Effect of COVID‐19 Lockdowns on Political Support: Some Good News for Democracy?” European Journal of Political Research, 19 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12401
David Stasavage, “Democracy, Autocracy, and Emergency Threats: Lessons for COVID-19 From the Last Thousand Years,” Cambridge University Press, COVID-19 Online Supplemental Issue, 19 August 2020,https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000338
Dhruva Jaishankar. “What does COVID19 tell us about democracy vs authoritarianism?” Observer Research Gate, (May 16 2020) https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/what-does-covid19-tell-us-about-democracy-vs-authoritarianism-66228/.
Eric Orlowski and David Goldsmith, “Four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden’s prized herd immunity is nowhere in sight,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (11 August 2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/metrics/10.1177/0141076820945282
Eugénie Mérieau, “COVID-19, Authoritarianism vs. Democracy: What the Epidemic Reveals about the Orientalism of Our Categories of Thought,” SciencesPo(August 28, 2020) https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/covid-19-authoritarianism-vs-democracy-what-epidemic-reveals-about-orientalism-our-categorie
Frida Ghitis, “Will There be a Reckoning Over Sweden’s Disastrous ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy?,” World Politics Review (December 17, 2020) https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29296/in-sweden-herd-immunity-has-failed-tragically-will-there-be-a-reckoning
German Petersen. “Democracy, Authoritarianism, and COVID-19 Pandemic Management: The Case of SARS-CoV-2 Testing,” American Political Science Association, 16 July 2020, https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2020-wbhfk-v4
GuilhemCassan and Milan Van Steenvoort, “Political regime and COVID 19 Death Rate: Efficient, Biasing or Simply Different Autocracies?” (January 26, 2021) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09960.pdf
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/; when I gave this paper in October 2020, Brazil was at 130,000 deaths.
James F. Keenan, “The Color Line, Race and Caste: Structures of Domination and the Ethics of Recognition,” Theological Studies, 82, 1 (2021) 69-94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563921992550
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Wake Up Call: Why the Pandemic has Exposed the Weakness of the West—and how to Fix it, New York: Harper Collins, 2020.
Joshua J. Solano, Dennis G. Maki, Terry A. Adirim, Richard D. Shih, and Charles H. Hennekens, “Public Health Strategies Contain and Mitigate COVID-19: A Tale of Two Democracies,” American Journal of Medicine, (15 Aug 2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.08.001.
Jouni Korhonen and BirkGranberg, “Sweden Backcasting, Now?Strategic Planning for Covid-19 Mitigation in a Liberal Democracy,” Sustainability, 12, 10, 4138, 19 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104138.
Katie Shepherd, “The New England Journal of Medicine avoided politics for 208 years: Now it’s urging voters to oust Trump,” Washington Post, 8 Oct 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/08/science-journal-endorsement-trump/.
Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989; Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Maylin Meisenheimer, “Democracy? Autocracy? Coronavirus Doesn’t Care: Capacity for Governance best Predicts the Performance Countries have against the Coronavirus,” The Diplomat (March 17, 2020) https://thediplomat./2020/03/democracy-autocracy-coronavirus-doesnt-care/
Michael A. Weber, Maria A. Blackwood, Tomas F. Husted, Thomas Lim, and Derek Mix, “Global Democracy and Human Rights Impacts of COVID-19: In Brief,” Congressional Research Service, (26 June 2020) 1-15, 8. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46430.pdf
Michael Massing, “Does Democracy Avert Famine,” The New York Times, (March 1, 2003) https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html
Misha Gajewski, “Stop Trying To Make ‘Herd Immunity’ Happen: Sweden’s Attempt At Covid-19 Herd Immunity Failed,” Forbes (11 August 2020) https://www.forbes.com/sites/mishagajewski/2020/08/11/stop-trying-to-make-herd-immunity-happen-swedens-attempt-at-covid-19-herd-immunity-failed/#743461c541cb
Nils Haug, Lukas Geyrhofer, Alessandro Londei, A. et al., “Ranking the Effectiveness of Worldwide COVID-19 Government Interventions,” Nature Human Behaviour 4 (2020) 1303–1312 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01009-0
OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), “Enhancing Public Trust in COVID-19 Vaccination: The Role of Governments,” OECD (10 May 2021) https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/enhancing-public-trust-in-covid-19-vaccination-the-role-of-governments-eae0ec5a/
Rachel Kleinfeld, “Do Authoritarian or Democratic Countries Handle Pandemics Better?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404
Stephen Thomson,“COVID-19 Emergency Measures Are Hurting Democracy Globally,”American Journal of Public Health 110, 9 (Sep 2020) 1356-1357,https://search.proquest.com/docview/2435556983?accountid=9673&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo
The Editorial Board of The New England Journal of Medicine, “Dying in a Leadership Vacuum.” N Engl J Med 383 (8 Oct 2020)1479-1480,https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
Thomas J. Bollyky, “Democracies Keep Vaccines for Themselves,” The Atlantic (March 27, 2021) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/rich-countries-give-money-keep-vaccines-themselves/618437/
Vinod Sreeharsha, “Covid-19 Batters Brazil, but Its Leader Is More Popular Than Ever,” Wall Street Journal, (13 Sep 2020),https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-batters-brazil-but-its-leader-is-more-popular-than-ever-11599998401
“Diseases Like Covid-19 are Deadlier in Non-democracies,” The Economist, (18 February 2020), https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/02/18/diseases-like-covid-19-are-deadlier-in-non-democracies
“Hero who Told the Truth’: Chinese Rage over Corona virus Death of Whistle blower Doctor,” The Guardian February 7, 2020; https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang
“Out in the Open; Covid-19 and Democracy, “The Economist, (6 June 2020),https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=mlin_m_bostcoll&id=GALE|A625734606&v=2.1&it=r&sid=AONE&asid=b3606b59
“Trump Administration Had No Coronavirus Vaccine Distribution Plan,” Reuters (January 24, 2021) https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-klain/trump-administration-had-no-coronavirus-vaccine-distribution-plan-white-house-idUSKBN29T0FY
Amartya Sen, Poverty and Famine: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Andrea Vicini, “COVID-19: A Crisis and a Tragedy—What’s Next,” Theological Studies 82. 1, (March 2021) 116-137https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0040563921995850
Ariana Berengaut, “Democracies Are Better at Fighting Outbreaks,” The Atlantic (February 24, 2020) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-democracies-are-better-fighting-outbreaks/606976/
Bruno Mégarbane, et al., “Is Lockdown Effective in Limiting SARS-CoV-2 Epidemic Progression? A Cross-Country Comparative Evaluation Using Epidemiokinetic
Tools, "Journal of General Internal Medicine36 3 (2021)746-752. doi:10.1007/s11606-020-06345-5
Carl Benedikt Frey, Chinchih Chen, and Giorgio Presidente, “Democracy, Culture and Contagion: Political Regimes and Countries Responsiveness to Covid-19,” (May 13 2020) https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/democracy-culture-and-contagion-political-regimes-and-countries-responsiveness-to-covid-19/
Charles Powell, “Sleeping Sickness: Will Covid-19 Transform Democracies in the Long Term?,” Times Literary Supplement, no. 5870, 2020, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A6376332 06/AONE?u=mlin_m_bostcoll&sid=AONE&xid=cf2c701d.
Damien Bol, Marco Giani, André Blais, and Peter John Loewen, “The Effect of COVID‐19 Lockdowns on Political Support: Some Good News for Democracy?” European Journal of Political Research, 19 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12401
David Stasavage, “Democracy, Autocracy, and Emergency Threats: Lessons for COVID-19 From the Last Thousand Years,” Cambridge University Press, COVID-19 Online Supplemental Issue, 19 August 2020,https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020818320000338
Dhruva Jaishankar. “What does COVID19 tell us about democracy vs authoritarianism?” Observer Research Gate, (May 16 2020) https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/what-does-covid19-tell-us-about-democracy-vs-authoritarianism-66228/.
Eric Orlowski and David Goldsmith, “Four months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweden’s prized herd immunity is nowhere in sight,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (11 August 2020) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/metrics/10.1177/0141076820945282
Eugénie Mérieau, “COVID-19, Authoritarianism vs. Democracy: What the Epidemic Reveals about the Orientalism of Our Categories of Thought,” SciencesPo(August 28, 2020) https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/covid-19-authoritarianism-vs-democracy-what-epidemic-reveals-about-orientalism-our-categorie
Frida Ghitis, “Will There be a Reckoning Over Sweden’s Disastrous ‘Herd Immunity’ Strategy?,” World Politics Review (December 17, 2020) https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29296/in-sweden-herd-immunity-has-failed-tragically-will-there-be-a-reckoning
German Petersen. “Democracy, Authoritarianism, and COVID-19 Pandemic Management: The Case of SARS-CoV-2 Testing,” American Political Science Association, 16 July 2020, https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2020-wbhfk-v4
GuilhemCassan and Milan Van Steenvoort, “Political regime and COVID 19 Death Rate: Efficient, Biasing or Simply Different Autocracies?” (January 26, 2021) https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.09960.pdf
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/countries-where-coronavirus-has-spread/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/brazil/; when I gave this paper in October 2020, Brazil was at 130,000 deaths.
James F. Keenan, “The Color Line, Race and Caste: Structures of Domination and the Ethics of Recognition,” Theological Studies, 82, 1 (2021) 69-94. https://doi.org/10.1177/0040563921992550
John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, The Wake Up Call: Why the Pandemic has Exposed the Weakness of the West—and how to Fix it, New York: Harper Collins, 2020.
Joshua J. Solano, Dennis G. Maki, Terry A. Adirim, Richard D. Shih, and Charles H. Hennekens, “Public Health Strategies Contain and Mitigate COVID-19: A Tale of Two Democracies,” American Journal of Medicine, (15 Aug 2020), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2020.08.001.
Jouni Korhonen and BirkGranberg, “Sweden Backcasting, Now?Strategic Planning for Covid-19 Mitigation in a Liberal Democracy,” Sustainability, 12, 10, 4138, 19 May 2020, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12104138.
Katie Shepherd, “The New England Journal of Medicine avoided politics for 208 years: Now it’s urging voters to oust Trump,” Washington Post, 8 Oct 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/08/science-journal-endorsement-trump/.
Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen, Hunger and Public Action, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989; Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Maylin Meisenheimer, “Democracy? Autocracy? Coronavirus Doesn’t Care: Capacity for Governance best Predicts the Performance Countries have against the Coronavirus,” The Diplomat (March 17, 2020) https://thediplomat./2020/03/democracy-autocracy-coronavirus-doesnt-care/
Michael A. Weber, Maria A. Blackwood, Tomas F. Husted, Thomas Lim, and Derek Mix, “Global Democracy and Human Rights Impacts of COVID-19: In Brief,” Congressional Research Service, (26 June 2020) 1-15, 8. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46430.pdf
Michael Massing, “Does Democracy Avert Famine,” The New York Times, (March 1, 2003) https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html
Misha Gajewski, “Stop Trying To Make ‘Herd Immunity’ Happen: Sweden’s Attempt At Covid-19 Herd Immunity Failed,” Forbes (11 August 2020) https://www.forbes.com/sites/mishagajewski/2020/08/11/stop-trying-to-make-herd-immunity-happen-swedens-attempt-at-covid-19-herd-immunity-failed/#743461c541cb
Nils Haug, Lukas Geyrhofer, Alessandro Londei, A. et al., “Ranking the Effectiveness of Worldwide COVID-19 Government Interventions,” Nature Human Behaviour 4 (2020) 1303–1312 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01009-0
OECD Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19), “Enhancing Public Trust in COVID-19 Vaccination: The Role of Governments,” OECD (10 May 2021) https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/enhancing-public-trust-in-covid-19-vaccination-the-role-of-governments-eae0ec5a/
Rachel Kleinfeld, “Do Authoritarian or Democratic Countries Handle Pandemics Better?” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404
Stephen Thomson,“COVID-19 Emergency Measures Are Hurting Democracy Globally,”American Journal of Public Health 110, 9 (Sep 2020) 1356-1357,https://search.proquest.com/docview/2435556983?accountid=9673&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo
The Editorial Board of The New England Journal of Medicine, “Dying in a Leadership Vacuum.” N Engl J Med 383 (8 Oct 2020)1479-1480,https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2029812
Thomas J. Bollyky, “Democracies Keep Vaccines for Themselves,” The Atlantic (March 27, 2021) https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/03/rich-countries-give-money-keep-vaccines-themselves/618437/
Vinod Sreeharsha, “Covid-19 Batters Brazil, but Its Leader Is More Popular Than Ever,” Wall Street Journal, (13 Sep 2020),https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-batters-brazil-but-its-leader-is-more-popular-than-ever-11599998401
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2022-01-01
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Keenan, J. F. . (2022). 10 THESES ON DEMOCRACY AND COVID-19. Asian Horizons, (1), 115–128. Retrieved from https://dvkjournals.in/index.php/ah/article/view/3730
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