Many Western, wealthy, liberal democracies had less than impressive responses to COVID-19, from the United States to the United Kingdom, and from Italy to Germany. Furthermore, a country being a liberal democracy (a democracy committed to protecting individual liberties and the rule of law) was significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality for part of the pandemic. One explanation for many Western democracies’ lackluster COVID-19 responses is that they lacked prior experience with diseases like SARS or MERS to induce them to prepare for another public health crisis. Additionally, many liberal democracies have a highly individualistic citizenry (like the United States) that might be less trusting of government policies, even in an emergency.

Why Did Advanced Democracies Fumble COVID-19?

A country being a liberal (advanced) democracy was not significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality throughout much of the pandemic. However, when this study was run again in April 2021, liberal democracy was significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality. This complicates the picture—basic components of democracy are not associated with COVID-19 mortality, but something about advanced democracies might make them more susceptible to having many COVID-related deaths.

Wesleyan University

The supposed flaws of democracy—particularly components of democracy that decentralize power—are not associated with COVID-19 mortality. A 2020 cross-country quantitative analysis of COVID-19 mortality around the world found that neither federalism nor the existence of veto players—two components of democracy typically blamed for gridlock and ineffective policy-making—were significantly associated with COVID-19 mortality.

Core Components of Democracy and Pandemic Response

Bosancianu, C. M., Dionne, K. Y., Hilbig, H., Humphreys, M., KC, S., Lieber, N., & Scacco, A. (2020). Political and Social Correlates of Covid-19 Mortality. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/ub3zd

Bosancianu et al. (2020)

Dashboard: Social and political correlates of Covid-19. (2021, May 3). WZB: Institutions and Political Equality Group. https://wzb-ipi.github.io/corona/

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