Policy capacity during COVID‐19 in Asia: A systematic literature review

• Published date: 01 February 2023
• Author: Antun Mardiyanta,Calvin Nathan Wijaya
• Date: 01 February 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2835

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Policy capacity during COVID-19 in Asia: A systematic

literature review

Antun Mardiyanta

1

| Calvin Nathan Wijaya

1,2

1

Department of Public Administration,

Universitas Airlangga, Surabaya, East Java,

Indonesia

2

Reformed Center for Religion and Society,

Jakarta, DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

Correspondence

Antun Mardiyanta, Department of Public

Administration, Universitas Airlangga,

Indonesia.

Email: antun.mardiyanta@fisip.unair.ac.id

COVID-19 has revealed the policy capacity of some governance institutions, both

resilience and vulnerability. Hence, this circumstance has demanded public administration

scholars and practitioners to rethink the existing governance practices, particularly in

making effective crisis-related policies. This paper reviewed primary and secondary studies

exploring the application of policy capacity competencies in facilitating COVID-19

handling in Asia. In achieving so, we did a systematic literature review of relevant studies

published between January and October 2020. Applying the agreed search term to several

databases, we found 2541 studies, while merely 30 were included for review. Findings

from the studies are predominantly closely linked to operational capacity (n=21). Other

studies are related to political and analytical capacity (n=14 and 7, retrospectively). We

found that there are some dilemmas and inadequacy of understanding concerning the

role of features in certain capacities (such as technology use versus individual privacy, the

paradox of trust and legitimacy, or centralisation versus decentralisation), particularly in

thetimeofcrisis,whichisacallingforfutureresearch.

KEYWORDS

COVID-19, policy capacity, public health policy, systematic review

1|INTRODUCTION

COVID-19 was not just a tragedy in our humanity, however, it also

has reflected the fragility of some governance institutions in the pub-

lic sector (Dunlop et al., 2020, p. 366). From the outbreak until now,

there have been a huge number of studies which address government

capacity in handling the disease. Some concern of the studies revolves

around legitimacy (Christensen & Lægreid, 2020), effective crisis man-

agement (Correia et al., 2020; Mascio et al., 2020), policy choice

(Gaskell et al., 2020), information flow (Gao & Yu, 2020; Zhang &

Zhang, 2020), centralisation and decentralisation (Ang, 2020; Desson

et al., 2020; Zhang & Zhang, 2020), public leadership (Plaček

et al., 2020), the role of science (van Dooren & Noordegraaf, 2020),

dan state-society relationship (Kavaliunas et al., 2020). The list of liter-

ature could be even longer if we try to include more studies. In short,

the abundance of literature concerning COVID-19 handling shows

how this messy problem could be approached from different aspects.

However, despite the wi de-ranging aspects th at affect the gov-

ernment's capacity to ha ndle this pandemic, poli cy-related factors

play even more crucial ro les in handling the pand emic. For example,

in terms of policy design, it was argued that policy design “forge the

process and content of the r esponse”to COVID-19 (Capano, 2020).

Policy narrative was a lso central to the effectiveness of govern ment

response (Mintrom & O'Co nnor, 2020). In approachingCOVID-19 as

an unfolding event, poli cy learning was essential to “formulate

appropriate policie s and implement them acco rdingly”(Raoofi

et al., 2020) that resulting in s uccess in controlling th e pandemic

(Baniamin et al., 2020). Suppor t towards policy also m ay play a piv-

otal role in handling CO VID-19 (Earnshaw et al., 2020). Similarl y, this

notion also suggested by D unlop et al. (2020) that there are seven

analytical themes in the public policy and administration field that

are central in respondin g to the challenges brought b y COVID-19:

policy design and instrum ents, policy learning, public service, and its

publics, organisational capacity, public governance, administrative

traditions and public sect or reforms in multilevel governance (MLG).

In short, there will be no way to un derstand the effectiveness of the

response to COVID-19 with out the understanding of policy and poli-

tics (Greer et al., 2020).

Received: 31 March 2021 Revised: 13 May 2022 Accepted: 7 July 2022

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2835

J Public Affairs. 2023;23:e2835. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 1of18

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2835

In this paper, we focused on how the policy capacity facilitates

COVID-19 handling. Despite the wide-ranging debate of policy capac-

ity, this term has been clearly defined as “the sets of skills and

resources—or competencies and capabilities—necessary to perform

policy functions”(Wu et al., 2015, p. 166, 2018, p. 3). In general, high

levels of policy capacity results in superior policy outputs and out-

comes while policy failure are linked with capacity shortfall (Wu

et al., 2018, p. 1). Therefore, policy capacity has been a major concern

for governance institutions when dealing with messy societal prob-

lems, such as COVID-19 global pandemic.

Several things need to be underlined to understand policy capacity:

(1) it covers all policy processes: agenda-setting, policy formulation, policy

implementation and policy evaluation; (2) it goes beyond the government

itself to understand capacity, so it also embraces non-governmental insti-

tutions involvement; and (3) key to policy success are high level of capaci-

ties in multiple dimensions, however, it is not always in equal measure

(Wu et al., 2015). Furthermore, policy capacity is multidimensional. It con-

sists of three categories of main competence in policy capacity—analyti-

cal, operational and political—that involve capabilities at three levels:

individual, organisational and systemic (Wu et al., 2015). This categorisa-

tion generates a framework that comprises nine basic types of policy

capacity as described as follows.

Analytical capacity is a capacity that ensures that policy actions

are technically sound. It can be understood as: an ability to access and

apply technical and scientific knowledge and analytical techniques

(individual level) (Howlett, 2015); organisational commitment to

evidence-based policy (organisational level); and general state of sci-

entific, statistical and educational facilities in a society that facilitates

high-quality information to carry on analytical and managerial function

(systemic level) (Wu et al., 2015). Operational capacity (or managerial

capacity) ensures policy action, also with its resources, can be imple-

mented. It can be understood as: managerial function at the individual

level; performance of policy managers on the internal organisation;

and coordination of governmental and non-governmental efforts to

address policy problems (systemic level) (Wu et al., 2015). Political

capacity is closely linked to political support. Furthermore, it can be

understood as follow: “policy acumen”or policy knowledge andexperi-

ence as an individual; relationship with governance partner and the

public (organisational level); and public trust or public legitimation of

policy actions at the systemic level (Wu et al., 2015). However, those

skills and resources are interconnected, governedby different consider-

ations, and their contributions to the policy process are separable and

irreplaceable. They also may not be required for particular actions to

succeed. Thisunderstanding left an issue tobe addressed as Wu stated:

“Are some capacity types more important than others? If yes, then

what weightingshould we attribute to them?”(Wu et al., 2015,p.170).

Moreover, we focused on Asian countries' policy capacity in deal-

ing with COVID-19. The reason is twofold: the distinguishing feature

of Asiatic mode of governance from the Western style of governance

and the fact that most of Asian countries were controlling the

pandemic better that the Western countries.

In terms of mode of governance, Asia has its unique administrative

civilisation and policy style (Cheung, 2013; Mukherjee & Howlett, 2016)

which are “the product of a complex process of layering”(Painter &

Peters, 2010,p.25).AsMukherjeeandHowlett(2016)noted,this

uniqueness is based on a specific pattern of policy capacities and gover-

nance modes. Painter and Peters (2010, 26) underlined the diverse

combination of local tradition and foreign import in North-east and

South-east Asian administrative tradition derived from Confucianism

(and non-Confucianism) and European tradition (including Continental

Europe and Anglo-American). This unique feature of administrative and

policy style frequently contradicts the Western style of governing. For

instance, it is common that the Asiatic mode of governance tends to be

pro-state (state-centric) and pro-bureaucrats (Cheung, 2013,p.256)

which is not compatible with Western “colonial”ideas of good gover-

nance. Another distinguishing feature is its tendency to embrace spiritual,

moral and cultural-based values (Farazmand & Balilaj, 2015). In terms

of policy capacity, most Asian countries are also more comfortable

performing political and operational tasks than analytical tasks (Saguin

et al., 2018). Nevertheless, this distinct feature of governance has been

under-studied (Cheung, 2013). By focusing on Asian countries, this paper

will be able to grasp the understanding of its uniqueness and contribute

to the discourse of the Asiatic mode of governance.

Regarding the practice of governing the pandemic, recent studies

has claimed that Asian countries performed a better COVID-19

handling compared to the West (Anttiroiko, 2021; Navarro, 2021;

Shokoohi et al., 2020). Anttiroiko (2021) distinguished the “proactive”

Asian and Asia-Pacific countries and “reactive”Western countries

in responding COVID-19. This different response is caused by

experience of prior epidemics and resulted in rapid recognition of the

threat, and diligence and determination in COVID-19 response

(Anttiroiko, 2021, p. 11; Navarro, 2021, p. 263). Other distinctive

manner of East and West in responding to COVID-19 emphasised by

Shokoohi et al. (2020). While the West implemented a “patient-cen-

tered”strategies in the hospital settings, the East applied a “commu-

nity-centered”approach to public health strategies which was proven

reduce community transmission of fast-spreading infectious disease

until an effective vaccine becomes available (Shokoohi et al., 2020,

p. 438). Asia countries' past and response become an attractive con-

text to be studied because of the differences, even contradictory, to

the West.

The aforementioned problem inspired this paper to provide a sys-

tematic literature review concerning policy capacity in the COVID-19

pandemic. This paper aims to identify how policy capacity was applied

in the time of crisis, particularly in dealing with COVID-19. It

addresses these three questions, based on the categorisation of main

competencies in policy capacity: (1) How does analytical capacity

facilitate COVID-19 handling in Asia?; (2) How does managerial capac-

ity facilitate COVID-19 handling in Asia?; (3) How does political

capacity facilitate COVID-19 handling in Asia? By answering these

questions, this paper contributed to both theory and praxis of gover-

nance in the time of crisis. Theoretically, this paper contributes to the

development of the theory of policy capacity by identifying which

capacities need to be applied, particularly in the time of crisis, based

on the reviews. Practically, this paper contributes to suggest policy-

makers and practitioners in dealing with future public health crisis.

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