Record Details

Replication Data for: Precaution and Proportionality in Pandemic Politics: Democracy, State Capacity, and COVID-19 Related School Closures Around the World

Harvard Dataverse (Africa Rice Center, Bioversity International, CCAFS, CIAT, IFPRI, IRRI and WorldFish)

View Archive Info
 
 
Field Value
 
Title Replication Data for: Precaution and Proportionality in Pandemic Politics: Democracy, State Capacity, and COVID-19 Related School Closures Around the World
 
Identifier https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/PQ2GEQ
 
Creator Cronert, Axel
 
Publisher Harvard Dataverse
 
Description The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a globally spread—but differently timed—implementation of school closures and other disruptive containment measures as governments worldwide intervened to curb transmission of disease. This study argues that the timing of such disruptive interventions reflects how governments balance the principles of precaution and proportionality in their pandemic decision-making. A theory is proposed of how their trade-off is impacted by two interacting institutional factors: electoral democratic institutions, which incentivize political leaders to increasingly favor precaution, and high state administrative capacity, which instead makes a proportional strategy involving later containment measures more administratively and politically feasible. Global patterns consistent with this theory are documented among 170 countries in early 2020, using Cox models of school closures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. Corroborating the theorized mechanisms, additional results indicate that electoral competition prompts democratic leaders’ faster response, and that this mechanism is weaker where professional state agencies have more influence over policy-making.
 
Subject Social Sciences
Pandemic response, COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2, Political competition, Political–administrative relationships, Blame avoidance, Proportionality principle
 
Contributor Cronert, Axel