COVID-19 and State Capacity: Did the Pandemic Crisis Strengthen the State?

• In Event: State Informational Capacity in Historical and Contemporary Governance

Abstract

Past studies on the relationship between COVID-19 and the state have predominantly focused on examining the impact of state capacity on variation in pandemic outcomes and responses. Yet it is likely that the effective implementation of COVID-19 responses not only depended on pre-existing state capacity, but also prompted states to increase their capacities. Drawing on the scholarly literature on statebuilding, state formation, and wars, I argue that a pandemic like COVID-19 is a crisis that requires the state to step in and strengthen its policy implementation ability. In addressing this question, my study fills an important theoretical and empirical gap in the literature, as this ‘reverse’ causal direction of the link between COVID-19 and the state has received for now scarce research attention. By combining evidence from secondary case studies with statistical analysis of cross-country data on COVID-19 responses and state capacity, my study shows that the pandemic affected the infrastructural and informational capacities of the state. I further analyse the effect of specific policy responses on state capacity and discuss the implications of my findings for liberal democracy in an age of autocratisation. Ultimately, my study demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic can provide important theoretical and empirical insights on how states respond to major crises, and on whether and how these crises in turn affect institutions.

Author

• Andrea Vaccaro, University of Oxford