Leiden University Student Repository

Vreugdenhil, Thijs (2022)

Democracy and Covid-19: How democratic values did (not) shape Covid-19 response policies

Master thesis | Public Administration (MSc)

Since December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic is travelling around the world. In the first waves, governments are struggling how to deal with the pandemic. Each government has their own view on the coronavirus and how to battle against it. In whatever way governments fight Covid-19, they have to take into account a number of aspects. One of these aspects is the level of democratic values in a country. In the first part of this thesis, I researched whether or not democratic values, as measured by the V-dem have been shaping the stringency of policy, as measured by the Oxford Stringency Index, in the first periods of the Covid-19 pandemic. It turned out that the democratic values had no statistically significant effect on the peak of stringency in policy. Out of the variables that I controlled for, only the number of Covid-19 deaths had this significant effect. In the second part of this thesis, a small case study was conducted to outlying cases. This case study showed that fear,...Show moreSince December 2019, the Covid-19 pandemic is travelling around the world. In the first waves, governments are struggling how to deal with the pandemic. Each government has their own view on the coronavirus and how to battle against it. In whatever way governments fight Covid-19, they have to take into account a number of aspects. One of these aspects is the level of democratic values in a country. In the first part of this thesis, I researched whether or not democratic values, as measured by the V-dem have been shaping the stringency of policy, as measured by the Oxford Stringency Index, in the first periods of the Covid-19 pandemic. It turned out that the democratic values had no statistically significant effect on the peak of stringency in policy. Out of the variables that I controlled for, only the number of Covid-19 deaths had this significant effect. In the second part of this thesis, a small case study was conducted to outlying cases. This case study showed that fear, prevention, a lack of knowledge and the economy interests has driven the initial responses in the Covid-19 pandemic.Show less

Covid-19 pandemic

pandemic response policy

stringency of policy

democratic values

Author

Vreugdenhil, Thijs

Faculty

Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

Specialisation

International and European Governance

Supervisors

Vydra, S.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en