The imperative of state capacity in public health crisis: Asia's early COVID-19 policy responses.

ABSTRACT: Preexisting political institutions influence governments' responses to public health crises in different ways, creating national variations. This article investigates how state capacity, a country's fundamental ability to organize bureaucracy and allocate societal resources, affects the timing and configuration of governments' COVID-19 policy responses. Through comparative case study analysis of five of China's neighboring countries early in the COVID-19 crisis, the paper shows that more-capable states (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) initiated crisis response faster, mobilized national resources more extensively, and utilized diverse policy tools when the virus risk level was still low. In contrast, low-capacity states (Thailand and Indonesia) were more reactive in handling the crisis, li

SUBMITTER: Yen WT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9111679 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature