The COVID-19 pandemic provoked a wide range of government responses and caused a staggering number of deaths globally. The once-in-a-century pandemic has become an indicator and test of social and political systems. From the perspective of state-society relations, my dissertation research explores how structural features of political institutions shape the strategies and effectiveness of pandemic responses and what are the implications of those responses for government legitimacy and regime stability. 

The first part of the research assesses the relationships between political institutions and COVID-19 mortality by using my original data from 174 countries to estimate spatial autoregressive models. The results suggest that greater bureaucratic quality, higher degrees of liberal democracy, and higher levels of centripetalism are associated with lower excess mortality rates.

Through process tracing, the second part compares nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in Mainland China and Hong Kong focusing on the period after the spread of the Omicron variant. Leninist institutions of China featuring a high level of social control and a low level of social inclusion facilitated total mobilization and a top-down campaign-style approach to COVID-19. Weberian institutions of Hong Kong characterized by a low level of social control and a high level of social inclusion prevented the government from indefinitely pursuing the goal of “zero Covid,” despite being halfheartedly attempted. 

The last part of the research gauges the effects of NPIs on individuals, especially their attitudes toward the government. Through survey analysis, I find that NPIs have been more effective in bringing desired cognitive and behavioral changes in Mainland China than in Hong Kong and that a large proportion of the Chinese public continued to support the central government and the regime despite the widespread discontent over extreme NPI measures enforced by local officials.

Working Papers

• “Does Democracy Save Lives? Modeling Effects of Political Institutions on COVID-19 Mortality.” Under review.

• “From Zero Covid to Zero Restrictions: How Institutional Structures Determine Nonpharmaceutical Interventions Against COVID-19 in Mainland China and Hong Kong.”

• “Why People Comply with COVID-19 Restrictions: Insights from Surveys in Mainland China and Hong Kong.”

Data

Link to GitHub 

The outbreak of the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa reignited the debate over the possibilities of democratization, with much attention paid to the role of the internet and social media in mobilizing anti-government movements. 

Based on data from 166 countries between 1993 and 2018, I employ regression analysis to examine the relationships between internet penetration and democracy. The estimated models conform with the classic literature on democratization and suggest that the annual change in internet penetration is positively associated with a country’s Polity score.

Through the lens of the political process theory, I use process tracing to further investigate how similar calls for democratization in Tunisia and China produced contrasting results by comparing the framing processes, organizational resources, and political opportunities. It is evident that technology alone cannot determine the direction of political change. 

Publication

Kim, Elvis H. 2021. “Democratization and Authoritarianism in the Information Age.” International Area Studies Review 24, no. 3 (September): 205-223. https://doi.org/10.1177/22338659211026006.

Data

Link to GitHub