State-level Citizen Response to COVID-19 Containment Measures in Brazil and Mexico

Abstract

In Brazil and Mexico, presidents failed to take swift, national action to stop the spread of COVID-19. Instead, the burden of imposing and enforcing public health measures has largely fallen to subnational leaders, resulting in varied approaches within each country and conflicting messaging from elites. We likewise see variation in compliance with social distancing across subnational units. To explain this variation, we contend that citizen responses are driven both by the comprehensiveness of state policies and whether they take cues from national or subnational elites. We hypothesize that support for national and subnational elites, and the nature of the state-level policy response, affect citizen compliance with public health guidelines. In both countries, we find that support for the governor has an interactive relationship with policy response. In Brazil, support for the president is associated with lower compliance. In Mexico, this effect is not present. We argue that these distinct relationships are due to the different cues emerging from each leader.

Towards a post-pandemic social contract

“…The questions concerning the extent of lockdown, contact tracing, mask or vaccine mandates represent some of those challenges, which catch the actors off-guard. The global answers ranged from extreme state rigour (represented by countries such as China; Yang, 2022) to the extreme reluctance to undertake state interventions (exemplified by countries such as Brazil; Dunn and Laterzo, 2021). While the former strategy involved a system-based sacrifice of individuals for the universal justice of 'public interest', the latter threatened collective demise caused by the lack of system level intervention.…”

The Conflicts for the COVID-19 Pandemic Management in Mexico: An Analysis of Intergovernmental Relations

“…Health crisis management required to put in action a complex network between federal, state, and local authorities and actors (Ramírez de la Cruz et al, 2020 ). Although the SSA and the President himself placed themselves at the head of the management of this network, the erratic government position on the measures that should be taken to manage the pandemic increased uncertainty and disagreements between the actors involved (Dunn & Laterzo, 2021 ). The design and implementation of interventions by decree, ignoring the states and municipalities, caused resistance, confusion, polarization, and even rejection about the actions and objectives intended to be achieved (Knaul et al, 2021 ).…”

The Impact of Conditional Cash Transfers on Poverty, Inequality, and Employment During COVID-19: A Case Study from Brazil

“…At least partially, the exceptionality of Brazil and Mexico is explained by lack of political coordination and leadership. While both countries had presidents that denied the seriousness of the pandemic (Dunn & Laterzo, 2021 ; Rosario et al, 2021 ), unlike Mexico, Brazil implemented cash transfers at the very onset of the virus outbreak (Beazley et al, n.d.; Lustig et al, 2021 ). Therefore, in principle, lockdown measures should have been more effective in Brazil than in Mexico, as cash transfers should enable the population—particularly the most disadvantaged—the means to shelter-in-place.…”