Why Do Countries Respond Differently to COVID-19? A Comparative Study of Sweden, China, France, and Japan

• Author: Bo Yan,Bin Chen,Heng Zhu,Long Wu,Xiaomin Zhang
• Date: 01 August 2020
• Published date: 01 August 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074020942445
• Subject Matter: Comparative Governance During COVID-19: Lessons From Around the WorldComparative Management & Learning Techniques

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020942445

American Review of Public Administration

2020, Vol. 50(6-7) 762 –769

© The Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074020942445

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Comparative Management & Learning Techniques

Since December 2019, COVID-19 has become a global pan-

demic, quickly spreading to more than 200 countries and ter-

ritories around the world. Changing individuals’ behavior is

critical to containing and mitigating the COVID-19 pan-

demic because the virus can spread via human-to-human

transmission (Bavel et al., 2020). By March 2020, national

governments had employed a series of nonpharmaceutical

interventions (NPIs), including isolation, quarantine, and

social distancing, as well as community containment, to

combat the transmission of the virus (Wilder-Smith &

Freedman, 2020). Yet, there are noticeable country-to-coun-

try variations in regard to the scale and scope of these NPIs.

Oxford University created a stringency index to track and

compare the strictness of government policy interventions

across countries (Hale et al., 2020). The Oxford index reveals

that governments’ responses to COVID-19 exhibit signifi-

cant nuances and heterogeneity, especially with respect to

policy interventions regarding containment and closure.

Why do national governments respond differently to COVID-

19? Many factors may shape government response strate-

gies; for example, the severity of the pandemic in that country

and the country’s health care capacity (Kandel et al., 2020;

Pillemer et al., 2015). We discuss how two critical contextual

factors, institutional arrangements and national cultural ori-

entation, impact the formation and adoption of four distinct

national COVID-19 response strategies: a nudge strategy in

Sweden, a mandate strategy in China, a decree strategy in

France, and a boost strategy in Japan. We chose these four

countries because their divergent COVID-19 response strate-

gies have gained worldwide attention and sparked a global

debate, despite the fact that all of them are unitary states with

identical levels of Health Emergency Preparedness, as

ranked by World Health Organization (WHO) in 2018.1

Two Critical Contextual Factors:

Institutional Arrangements and

National Cultural Orientation

Understanding context is critical to analyzing and designing

public policy (Geva-May, 2002). In addition to problem-spe-

cific factors, such as different types of crisis (Christensen

et al., 2016), a multitude of contextual factors, such as cul-

tural orientation, economic development level, and political

institution, influence national governments’ policymaking

(Berkman et al., 2005; Carayannopoulos, 2017; Weible et al.,

2020). Given that COVID-19 is a transboundary virus that

can spread via human-to-human transmission, we argue that

national government response strategies are contingent not

only upon the state’s domination and control, but also upon

citizens’ compliance and voluntary support (Migdal, 2009).

942445ARPXXX10.1177/0275074020942445The American Review of Public AdministrationYan et al.

research-article2020

1School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University,

Xi’an, China

2Baruch College & The Graduate Center, The City University of New

York, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Bin Chen, The Austin W. Marxe School of Public and International Affairs,

Baruch College, One Bernard Baruch Way, Box D-0901, New York, NY

10010-5585, USA.

Email: bin.chen@baruch.cuny.edu

Why Do Countries Respond Differently

to COVID-19? A Comparative Study

of Sweden, China, France, and Japan

Bo Yan1, Xiaomin Zhang1, Long Wu1, Heng Zhu1, and Bin Chen2

Abstract

Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are important public health tools to fight against COVID-19. Governments around

the world have instituted a variety of NPIs to modify individuals’ behavior, giving rise to four distinct pandemic response

strategies: nudge, mandate, decree, and boost. To better understand the different policy choices involved in these strategies,

four countries including Sweden, China, France, and Japan were compared to identify the critical institutional and cultural

determinants of national response strategy. The finding shows that various responses regarding same threat are dependent

on the distinctive institutional arrangements and cultural orientation of each country, and thus, there is no One-Size-Fits-

All strategy.

Keywords

COVID-19, institutional arrangements, cultural orientation, response strategy