Democracy vs Anocracy vs Authoritarian Government... the COVID-19 Connection
I called this months ago...
Prepare for the navel gazing about the international COVID-19 response.
I've been reading a bit from the Brookings Institute and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and respected experts are starting to compare the failed responses from developed democracies worldwide and contrasting them with the responses from the "less than Democratic" nations.
They're going to be studying this for decades...
Absolutely fascinating reading that digs into WHY the US and EU struggled with COVID-19
A few tidbits:
"The pandemic is both reopening and intensifying one of the most vital debates of the post-post-Cold War era: that over whether democracy or authoritarianism is best suited to deal with new and unprecedented threats."
"Then there’s the reality that the largest Western democracies (but not East Asian democracies) have suffered the most in terms of total cases and per capita deaths. This has led a growing number of Americans and Europeans to doubt not only their governments, which is only natural, but their own political systems. How, after all, could the world’s oldest, most advanced democracies end up with countless dead from the coronavirus?"
Carnegie take on the US directly:
"In the United States, polarization affects views of legitimacy. Observance of measures such as handwashing broke down along starkly partisan lines as Trump downplayed the virus and offered advice in conflict with that of medical experts. As state governments—which enjoy greater trust levels—step into the breach, they implement widely differing public health approaches that mirror the red-blue electoral map, turning the United States into fifty case studies in governance."
https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/06/16/reopening-the-world-how-the-pandemic-is-reinforcing-authoritarianism/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/democracy-in-asia/
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