Why do democracies respond differently to Covid-19? A comparison of the United States and South Korea
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22074189 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yexin Mao (0000-0003-3181-232X, Hangzhou Normal University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Pages | 1285552-1285552 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-15 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers in Public Health (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2296-2565 • E-ISSN: 2296-2565 |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH) |
| DOI | 10.3389/fpubh.2023.1285552 |
| PMID | 38288425 |
| OpenAlex | W4390884142 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 94 |
Background: COVID-19 has posed severe challenges to crisis management in democracies. Different democracies respond to the crisis differently. This article proposes an analytical framework to explain why democracies respond differently to the public health crisis and how different contextual factors affect crisis response in democracies. Methods: By comparing COVID-19 responses in the US and South Korea, this article conducts a comparative case study with a most similar system design. The two countries have been selected as cases because they are both developed democracies with a robust healthcare system. However, different contextual factors in the two countries have created different crisis responses by shaping different crisis leadership and political and social solidarity. This study collected data from different sources, including government documents, official websites, leaders' speeches, research reports, academic articles and news media. We tried to enhance the reliability of the data by comparing different data sources. Results: We found that individual, institutional and cultural dimensions of contextual factors can influence different crisis responses of democratic countries by shaping crisis leadership and political and social solidarity. On the individual and institutional dimensions, leadership style and governance structure shape crisis leadership (sense making, decision making and coordinating, and meaning making), which in turn influences crisis management. On the cultural dimension, political and social solidarity measured by political polarization and social cooperation are shaped by cultural and social norms. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that democracies require strong crisis leadership and a high degree of political and social solidarity to tackle public health crises. A centralized and coordinated system, as well as a political elite leadership style shaped by rich crisis response experience, expertise and high sensitivity to crises are conducive to crisis management. Fostering a cultural and social norm that facilitates state-society collaboration can promote crisis management. These findings provide valuable insights for decision-makers to effectively respond to future pandemics
Crisis management · Democracy · Leadership style · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Solidarity · Disaster Management and Resilience · Disaster Response and Management · Law · Public Relations and Crisis Communication
The Problem-solving Capacity of the Modern State
The Strength of Social Norms Across Human Groups
Politicians polarize and experts depolarize public support for Covid-19 management policies across countries
Explaining the homogeneous diffusion of Covid-19 nonpharmaceutical interventions across heterogeneous countries
Tightness–looseness across the 50 united states
On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness.
The relationship between cultural tightness–looseness and Covid-19 cases and deaths
Democracy, Capacity, and Coercion in Pandemic Response
Elusive consensus
Differences Between Tight and Loose Cultures
Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration
Decentralization
Governing the Pandemic
What accounts for the different regional responses to Covid-19 in China? Exploring the role of institutional environment, governance capacity and legitimacy
How well does ‘resilience’ apply to democracy? A systematic review
How Affective Polarization Shapes Americans’ Political Beliefs
Leading Through the Crisis
Covid-19 amongst western democracies
Mobilizing Policy (In)Capacity to Fight Covid-19
Policy analytical capacity
Validity and generalization in future case study evaluations
Whole of Government
Covid-19 in South Korea
Federalism, Intergovernmental Relationships, and Emergency Response
Lessons From Covid-19 Responses in East Asia
Citizen–State Collaboration in Combating Covid-19 in China
Government Financial Management and the Coronavirus Pandemic
Why Do Countries Respond Differently to Covid-19? A Comparative Study of Sweden, China, France, and Japan
How the United States Flunked the Covid-19 Test
Lessons From South Korea’s Covid-19 Policy Response
Trump’s (mis)management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the US
Bringing the developmental state back in
Democracy in times of the pandemic
Fighting Covid ‐19 with Agility, Transparency, and Participation
Crisis Decision‐Making on a Global Scale
Organizing for Crisis Management
Unprecedented Challenges, Familiar Paradoxes
The Trump Administration and the Covid ‐19 crisis
Leadership Style, Crisis Response and Blame Management
Covid-19 and the policy sciences
Two routes to precarious success
Intergovernmental veto points in crisis management
A comparative study of Covid-19 responses in South Korea and Japan
The Politics of Crisis Management. Public Leadership Under Pressure
Covid-19
Using social and behavioural science to support Covid-19 pandemic response
Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences
Governing in a Polarized Era
The Transaction Costs of Government Responses to the Covid ‐19 Emergency in Latin America
The imperative of state capacity in public health crisis
A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus
Do Political Similarities Facilitate Interlocal Collaboration
Crisis Management in Hindsight
States Divided
Learning from the Katrina Crisis
Individual Characteristics of Political Leaders and the Use of Analogy in Foreign Policy Decision Making
Political institutions, state capacity, and crisis management
Crises and Crisis Management
Budgetary change in authoritarian and democratic regimes
South Korea's Democratic Decay
Building Credibility and Cooperation in Low-Trust Settings
The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States
Collaboration and Leadership for Effective Emergency Management
When Covid-19 meets centralized, personalized power
The evolution of the association between community level social capital and Covid-19 deaths and hospitalizations in the United States
Does democracy protect? The United Kingdom, the United States, and Covid-19
President Moon Jae-in at Midterm
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |