Testing the relationship between democratic accountability and the approved use of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines: Evidence from 194 countries

Abstract

Rapidly inoculating populations with efficacious vaccines is key to ending the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. This study attempts to identify political determinants that could explain how governments worldwide chose the main COVID-19 vaccines used in their countries. Specifically, it provides a quantitative examination of the association between democratic accountability (i.e., democratic regime type and government accountability) and approved usage of inactivated COVID-19 vaccines (namely, CoronaVac, BBIBP-CorV, and WIBP-CorV) in 194 countries. This examination is conducted using the method of binary logistic regression. Results indicate that the use of such vaccines is negatively associated with government accountability. Conversely, democracies have a higher tendency to approve the use of this vaccine type. This implies that governments with greater accountability, regardless of their political nature, tend to have better COVID-19 vaccine policies, viz., procuring higher-quality COVID-19 vaccines for mass vaccination.