Pandemic Politics in South Asia: Muslims and Democracy

Abstract

References to regime type figure prominently in analyses of the global COVID-19 pandemic and state responses to it: an ‘authoritarian’ transparency deficit in China allowed the pandemic to spread before disciplined bureaucratic intervention tackled it; ‘democratic’ openness left the United States vulnerable even as traditions of personal liberty and grassroots authority stifled a coordinated response. Within these analytical caricatures, or ideal types, two different notions of state effectiveness emerge, each rooted in its own account of the link between state capacity and legitimacy. In the authoritarian caricature, high levels of bureaucratic capacity are said to boost policy legitimacy. ..