China is often cited as having a successful response to the pandemic. For instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) lauded its city-wide lockdowns and monitoring of its citizens as “perhaps the most ambitious … disease containment effort in history.” As an autocracy, China was able to pursue an aggressive quarantine without human rights considerations. However, its autocratic nature might be to blame for the pandemic in the first place, as the government suppressed information about COVID-19 early on. The disease was then able to spread freely among an oblivious population before the government decided to contain it.

China's COVID-19 Response

The United States’ initial response to COVID-19 was lackluster. President Trump’s strategy was mostly one of dismissing the virus. The federal government failed to create enough testing kits, did not distribute enough personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators to hospitals, initially delayed distributing medical supplies to the states, and routinely spread misinformation about the virus. However, the extent to which this terrible federal response is the fault of American democracy and not merely the fault of the Trump administration is debatable. 

The United States' COVID-19 Response

The typical case studies used to compare democracies and autocracies on COVID-19 response are two of the largest countries in the world: China and the United States.

Wesleyan University

The evidence supporting the association between regime type and pandemic response is mixed. Some case studies seem to suggest that autocracies have better pandemic responses than democracies, while others suggest the opposite. Comprehensive quantitative analyses find that democracies have been better at restricting geographic mobility than autocracies; they also find that certain indicators of democracy are not significantly associated with COVIDmortality. However, the most advanced democracies in the world still appear to have the worst pandemic responses, leaving open questions for further research.

Evidence for Regime Type and COVID-19 Response

A comprehensive cross-country analysis of movement restriction policies during the pandemic found that, although autocrats implemented more stringent lockdowns of their countries, democracies saw a 20% greater decrease in their citizens’ movement, suggesting that democracies controlled their citizens’ movement better than autocracies. Greater protection of civil rights was also significantly associated with greater obedience to movement restrictions. Therefore, a democratic government might be better able to implement policies meant to counter the pandemic.

Success of Movement Restrictions in Democracies vs. Autocracies

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

Typical Case Studies of COVID-19 Response

Several case studies counter the dominant narrative that autocracies generally handled COVID-19 better than democracies.

Contrary Case Studies of COVID-19 Response

Current data suggest that wealthy countries have disproportionately more COVID-related deaths than poorer countries. However, developing countries might not have the capacity to report death tolls as accurately as developed countries. In the context of previous pandemics, it is also likely that developing countries have experienced much higher death tolls throughout this pandemic than is being reported. If this is the case, then any analysis of COVID-19 mortality is hampered by incomplete data. As such, we may not know the association between regime type and COVID-19 mortality until after the pandemic, if the data is more complete by then.

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