Dealing with COVID-19 in South Korea: reflections on state theories

Exploring East Asia's Successful Early-Stage Covid-19 Response: An Empirical Investigation

“…The establishment and empowerment of such institutions in East Asia should not come as a surprise. During the developmental state era, many East Asian countries utilized a control tower model with central coordination between ministries and command-and-style policymaking to mobilize and use resources efficiently to achieve rapid economic growth, the “East Asian Miracle” (Haggard 2004; Jang, Han, and Kim 2021). Consequently, some studies have attributed East Asia's successful early-stage Covid-19 response to their developmental-state legacies—defined as “well-qualified personnel, strong centralized control, efficient mobilization of budgetary and other resources, and speedy implementation of decisions” (Jang, Han, and Kim 2021, 151).…”

“…First, East Asian countries' prior experience with infectious diseases—severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (MERS), and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A viruses—spurred the development of appropriate institutional infrastructure in advance (An and Tang 2020; Chorzempa and Huang 2021; Feitelson et al 2022; Kim et al 2020; Lin, Lee, and Lye 2020; Sagara, Stables, and Baehr 2022). Second, interagency and government–business collaboration is critical to pandemic response, and East Asian states have significant legacies of developmental state-facilitated interagency and government–business collaboration (Jang, Han, and Kim 2021; Kumar 2021; Shaw, Kim, and Hua 2020; Yen 2020). Third, East Asia's collectivist culture facilitated cooperation from citizens, enabling East Asian governments to enact stringent and effective policy instruments (An et al 2021; An and Tang 2020; Porcher 2021).…”