CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Grabova, Olesya |
|---|---|
| Title | Pandemics, State Capacity, and Political Violence |
| Summary | In the spring of 2003, Chinese villagers all around the country got engaged in violent campaigns against quarantine introduction. SARS pandemic became a challenge for the government from both health and security perspectives, revealing healthcare management's weaknesses. A similar outcome happened during the Ebola outbreak in the countries of Western Africa when people resisted not only disease isolation and controlling measures but also had little belief in the existence of a disease threat. Consequently, in this thesis, I examine the conditions under which the 21st century's world pandemics trigger political violence and civil unrest. By focusing on the state capacity concept, which is widely used for measurement of successful policymaking (Gomide et al., 2018, Patrick, 2006), I demonstrate that low levels of it are connected with the potential risk of violent events. This idea is proved by comparing state capacities related to China's healthcare-related policies during SARS and South Korean ones during the MERS pandemics. More evidence that supports the described pattern is found by analyzing Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra-Leone. According to this thesis's findings, lack of transparency in policymaking, weak intergovernmental coordination, and insufficient communication with society lies in the core of the politically violent events during the health emergency. Nevertheless, the factor that might mitigate the threatening social uprising is foreign assistance and cooperation with the international community from the earliest stages of the disease spread. It is demonstrated in the example of Mexico during its Swine Flu crisis. |
| Supervisor | Bogaards, Matthijs |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/grabova_olesya.pdf |
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