Populist Nationalism Threatens Health and Human Rights in the COVID-19 Response

Williams, Caitlin R.; Kestenbaum, Jocelyn Getgen; Meier, Benjamin Mason

doi:10.2105/ajph.2020.305952

Cited by 26 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(9 reference statements)

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“…However, COVID-19 has put a spotlight on existing inequalities and on processes of coloniality (mind, body, knowledge, and power). It has created conditions for further inequities, with growing populist nationalism and isolationism, widening income disparities, and fractured systems of global cooperation [ 15 , 16 ]. The pandemic continues to enable those with money and power to expand their influence—making decoloniality, solidarity, and distribution of power, knowledge, and resources (e.g., vaccines) even more urgent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing power asymmetries in global health: Imperatives in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

Asthana²,

et al. 2021

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Addressing power asymmetries in global health: Imperatives in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic

Asthana²,

et al. 2021

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“…Concerned with the pandemic response and performance of countries, Bosancianu et al (2020) show that (1) state capacity, (2) political institutions, (3) political priorities, and (4) social structures are the four central features that capture the pandemic performance of countries and governments better than a simple division between autocracy and democracy. While many contributions have weighed in on the discussion of autocratic versus democratic pandemic response contributions concerned with populist governments and their pandemic response have been rather scarce (see for some notable exceptions see e.g., Bayerlein and Gyöngyösi, 2020;Gollwitzer et al, 2020;McKee et al, 2020;Mietzner, 2020;Smith, 2020;Williams, Kestenbaum, and Meier, 2020;Wondreys and Mudde, 2020). The necessity of analyzing the performance of populist governments is however of key importance as the outlined features that determine pandemic performance are closely related to populism.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Smith, 2020), lack a rigorous theoretical basis for empirical analyses (e.g. McKee et al, 2020;Williams, Kestenbaum, and Meier, 2020), or only address policies implemented at the onset without addressing their effectiveness (e.g. Kavakli, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populism and COVID-19: How Populist Governments (Mis)Handle the Pandemic

Bayerlein¹,

Boese²,

Gates

et al. 2021

SSRN Journal

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Populist parties and actors now govern various countries around the world. Often elected by the public in times of economic crises and over the perceived failure of the elites, the question stands as to how populist governments actually perform once elected. Using the pandemic shock in the form of the COVID-19 crises, our paper answers the question of how populist governments handle the pandemic. We answer this question by introducing a theoretical framework according to which (1) populist governments enact less far-reaching policy measures to counter the pandemic,(2) lower the effort of citizens to counter the pandemic, and are ultimately (3) hit worse by the pandemic. We test the propositions in a sample of 42 countries with weekly data from 2020.Employing econometric models, we find empirical support for our propositions and ultimately conclude that excess mortality exceeds the excess mortality of conventional countries by 10 percentage points (i.e., 100%). Our findings have important implications for the assessment of populist government performance in general as well as counter-pandemic measures in particular by providing evidence that opportunistic and inadequate policy responses as well as spreading misinformation and downplaying the pandemic are strongly related to increases in COVID-19 mortality.

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“…As one of the fathers of CMA, Rudolf Virchow (1821–1902) famously declared, ‘Medicine is a social science and politics is nothing but medicine writ large.’ 30 The political economy must be considered as causal and it is no surprise that the rise of populism, which has nurtured COVID-19 conspiracy theories, is also reflected in patterns of high mortality in Mexico, Brazil and the USA. 31 32 …”

Section: Brazil and Mexico: Southern Experiences Of A Global Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%