National and International Influences on Pandemic Response and Lockdowns

• In Event: COVID-19 in Comparative Context

Abstract

This paper considers the relationship between international and national actors in responding to a global crisis, the coronavirus pandemic. During a crisis such as the pandemic, states and national governments play a crucial role in responding to address the needs of citizens and others within their borders, including with respect to public health as well as socioeconomic impact. They also in turn are influenced by – and may influence - international (including regional) actors and institutions, which play formal and informal roles in global response. This paper explores this relationship by considering national responses to the coronavirus pandemic, with focus on the use of lockdowns as a public health measure.

The vast majority of countries employed some form of lockdown beginning in the first half of 2020. This paper first compares and describes the adoption of this policy measure across countries. It then considers lockdown policies as implemented by the majority of countries against other policy measures that could have been adopted instead, placing it first in historical context and then in relation to contemporary examples from other countries during the pandemic. The paper next discusses key explanations for the coalescence of lockdown policy responses across countries and considers the plausibility of each in turn against current evidence. In broader perspective, this consideration of explanations speaks to literatures on international policy and norm diffusion, as well as to discussion within international development on ‘local solutions for local problems’.

Analysis draws both on various policy ‘trackers’ (e.g. the OECD Country Policy Tracker, Oxford’s Coronavirus Government Response Tracker) and a database compiled by the authors to provide a comparative snapshot of policies, policy making processes, and policy enforcement related to restrictions on freedom of movement and assembly for a selected set of Global South and other countries (47 lower and lower middle income, plus 14 others).

Authors

• Rachel M. Gisselquist, United Nations University

• Durgesh Solanki, Johns Hopkins University