Recent studies on governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic focus on the individual effect of political system (democracy vs. autocracy) or government (or bureaucratic) capacity. In this study, we look into the interaction effect of political s...
Recent studies on governments’ response to the COVID-19 pandemic focus on the individual effect of political system (democracy vs. autocracy) or government (or bureaucratic) capacity. In this study, we look into the interaction effect of political system and government effectiveness on governments’ response to COVID-19. Analysis of the daily data on government responses to COVID-19 from January 1, 2020 to May 17, 2020 reveals the following. First, democratic governments with high government effectiveness were not able to implement stringent measures whereas autocratic governments with high government effectiveness were able to implement stringent measures in response to the pandemic.
Additionally, democratic governments with high government effectiveness were slower than their autocratic counterparts in implementing COVID-19 measures such as school closures, workplace closure, stay-at-home orders, etc. As for the effectiveness of COVID-19 measures, however, restrictive measures implemented by democratic governments with high government effectiveness were able to decrease the COVID-related death rates whereas no such effect is observed for highly effective autocratic governments. The findings of this paper imply that while democratic governments are less stringent and slower in implementing restrictive measures in response to COVID-19.