City Research Online

Abstract

In an age of “radical uncertainty,” state capacity proves critical for countries to contain “wicked crises” and improve the resilience of societies. At the same time, authoritarian populism has come to dominate politics in several countries. The impact of populist leadership on state capacity, however, remains an under-researched theme. We explore how populist rule has impeded effective management of the COVID-19 pandemic by weakening state capacity. We compare Brazil and Turkey as cases with similar degrees of state capacity but diverging pandemic management performance. We also examine South Korea as a benchmark case combining high state capacity and effective leadership. We show that state capacity is central in managing “wicked crises,” but populist leadership undermines it through a set of mechanisms. On a broader scale, we aim to contribute to the debate by exploring the interactions among crises, state capacity, and populist rule.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Publisher Keywords:	state capacity, uncertainty, COVID-19, populism, pandemic management
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HN Social history and conditions. Social problems. Social reform J Political Science > JC Political theory J Political Science > JL Political institutions (America except United States) J Political Science > JQ Political institutions Asia Q Science > QR Microbiology R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
Departments:	School of Policy & Global Affairs > International Politics
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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