{"id":56015,"date":"2020-05-20T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T01:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=56015"},"modified":"2020-05-20T10:44:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T00:44:35","slug":"why-democracies-are-better-at-managing-crises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/why-democracies-are-better-at-managing-crises\/","title":{"rendered":"Why democracies are better at managing crises"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

The Covid-19 crisis has become the latest front in the escalating clash of ideologies that has become a central feature of geopolitics in recent years. Representing authoritarianism is China, which has touted the success of its aggressive lockdown strategy in curbing the coronavirus\u2019s spread. Representing democracy are a broad array of countries, some of which have responded far worse than others. So, which political system is better suited to managing crises?<\/p>\n

The notion that authoritarian regimes have an advantage may be alluring. Whereas in democracies, such as the United States, people may misunderstand their freedom and resist protective measures<\/a> like mask-wearing, authoritarian regimes can easily impose and enforce rules that serve the public good. Moreover, some have argued<\/a> that China benefits from the Confucian tradition, with its emphasis on conformity and deference to authority, in contrast to Western democracies\u2019 emphasis on individual autonomy and consent to authority.<\/p>\n

China\u2019s government has been attempting to reinforce these narratives, including by mocking<\/a> the slow response in the US. And it\u2019s true that a sudden strict lockdown like the one that contained the Covid-19 outbreak in Wuhan\u2014the pandemic\u2019s first epicentre\u2014would be anathema to Americans. But when it comes to assessing political systems\u2019 capacity to respond to crisis, this comparison misses the point.<\/p>\n

For starters, democracies that uphold Confucian norms\u2014such as Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan\u2014have managed the Covid-19 crisis at least as effectively as China. So have several democracies without a Confucian tradition, including Australia, Greece, New Zealand and Norway. In fact, among the countries whose performance during the crisis has been rated<\/a> most highly, the majority are democracies.<\/p>\n

What these top-ranked democracies have in common is that their leaders recognised the scale of the challenge, communicated credibly with their citizens and took timely action. Worse-performing countries, by contrast, were either caught largely off guard (Italy and Spain) or had leaders who knowingly delayed action (Brazil, the UK and the US).<\/p>\n

To some extent, even the latter failure isn\u2019t out of line with history: as the run-up to the two world wars shows, democracies have often been slow to recognise the threat of war. Yet, once they did, they always prevailed, thanks to a combination of determined action and public trust in government.<\/p>\n

True, some democratic governments nowadays have largely lost the public\u2019s trust and seem determined not to act. US President Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro have both played down the severity of the virus and contradicted expert advice, while indulging their own narcissistic need to appear tough. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has displayed similar tendencies.<\/p>\n

But this can hardly be regarded as a pitfall of democracy. After all, during the Covid-19 crisis, many heads of democratic governments have emerged as exemplars of enlightened leadership.<\/p>\n

In New Zealand, 39-year-old Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has spoken frankly about the threat the virus poses, appealed to people\u2019s sense of shared responsibility and implemented science-based measures. \u00a0The spread of the virus was contained by early April, and fewer than 25 new cases have been detected<\/a> so far this month.<\/p>\n

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel\u2019s calm, transparent and credible communication style has contributed to a response that has kept the fatality rate<\/a> low. Resolute and timely action taken by Denmark\u2019s Mette Frederiksen, Taiwan\u2019s Tsai Ing-wen, Norway\u2019s Erna Solberg, Iceland\u2019s Katrin Jakobsdottir and Finland\u2019s Sanna Marin have produced similarly impressive results, without veering from democratic principles.<\/p>\n

These leaders had the trust of their citizens. (One might argue that electing a woman leader\u2014in some cases, a very young one\u2014reflects a country\u2019s political maturity and fundamental trust in the work of government.) And their responses deepened it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, authoritarian regimes depend on propaganda and censorship to maintain a patina of legitimacy, making lack of trust in government practically inescapable. Why would one trust China\u2019s Covid-19 figures, when it has been widely reported that local authorities\u2019 initial response to the outbreak was marked by suppression of information?<\/p>\n

This is far from China\u2019s first coverup. During the 2003 SARS outbreak, a physician had to become a whistleblower<\/a> before the government told the truth about the epidemic. Some informed observers<\/a> don\u2019t even believe<\/a> China\u2019s official GDP statistics. In any case, a new wave of Covid-19 infections in China now seems to be emerging<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also good reason to believe that the outbreaks in Iran<\/a> and Russia<\/a> are far more serious than has been reported. Following a series of official missteps\u2014including the Kremlin\u2019s initial refusing to take the crisis seriously\u2014Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s popularity plunged<\/a> to its lowest level in his 20 years in power.<\/p>\n

In comparing countries\u2019 performance during the Covid-19 crisis, there are also relevant factors that have nothing to do with political systems. Countries that have experienced infectious-disease outbreaks in the recent past\u2014such as China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan\u2014benefit from institutional knowledge.<\/p>\n

But even here, with the admittedly remarkable exception of Vietnam<\/a>, the democracies seem to have learned the lessons of past outbreaks better. South Korea\u2019s experience in 2012 with Middle East respiratory syndrome directly shaped its Covid-19 response, which emphasised large-scale testing. China, by contrast, repeated its mistake from the SARS epidemic, by initially attempting to engineer a cover-up.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t that China didn\u2019t learn its lesson; the problem is that it couldn\u2019t. And that is the point. In a democracy, a crisis is a political test: a leader must retain or strengthen the public\u2019s trust, or risk being voted out in the next election. But in an autocracy, a crisis is a threat to the regime\u2019s legitimacy\u2014indeed, its survival.<\/p>\n

With such high stakes, a cover-up will always seem like the safest bet. To expect such a government to respond differently, as Trump has demanded of the Chinese, may be tantamount to calling for regime change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Covid-19 crisis has become the latest front in the escalating clash of ideologies that has become a central feature of geopolitics in recent years. 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