[ADRN Working Paper] South Korea’s COVID-19 Pandemic Policy Optimization between Health and Economy
ISBN 979-11-6617-109-3 95340
Editor’s note
Ranking 8th among participating countries for Bloomberg’s Covid Resilience Ranking, South Korea has been relatively successful in combating the COVID-19 pandemic. How have countries like South Korea effectively handled the pandemic, while some failed to do so? Jung Kim, Assistant Professor at the University of North Korean Studies, explores what factors are important in pandemic policy optimization. In responding to national crises, policymakers face trade-offs between health and the economy – should policies prioritize lives or livelihoods? He claims that contrary to common thought that social capital is the most decisive factor in national policy performance, social risk is actually more decisive during a time of crisis politics such as a pandemic. That is, the higher the level of social risk, the more likely the government will be able to facilitate large-scale collective action that induces voluntary civic compliance with government Nonpharmaceutical Interventions (NPI) policies. He further explains why some countries have succeeded in their response against the pandemic while some failed through a statistical analysis of the determinants of COVID-19 pandemic policy.
※ 아래는 일부 내용을 발췌한 것입니다. 전문은 상단의 첨부파일을 확인하시길 바랍니다.
Introduction[1]
How have policymakers and citizens responded to the COVID-19 pandemic policy trade-off between health and the economy? Why have some nations succeeded in minimizing the trade-off between protecting lives and protecting livelihoods, but not others? Why and how has South Korea outperformed most other advanced democracies in dealing with the trade-off?[2]
Building on a growing literature that analyzes the trade-off between health and the economy in designing and implementing national COVID-19 policy responses (Desierto and Koyama 2020; Cheibub, Hong, and Przeworski 2020; Ginsburg and Versteeg 2020), this study attempts to answer the above questions examining the case of South Korea with comparative perspective. This research argues that contra conventional wisdom that social capital is the explanans of variation of national pandemic policy performances, social risk is much more important to facilitate large-scale collective action, which is the political foundation of voluntary civic compliance with government non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) policy recommendation and ultimately successful pandemic policy optimization between health and the economy.
A simple theoretical framework of pandemic policy optimization will be introduced in the next section. The third describes a quarterly comparison of national policy responses across OECD countries in 2020. The following section provides statistical cross-country analyses on the determinants of pandemic policy optimization over time. ■
[1] Throughout the year, ADRN members will publish a total of three versions of the Pandemic Crisis and Democratic Governance in Asia Research to include any changes and updates in order to present timely information. The first and second part will be publicized as a working paper and the third will be publicized as a special report. This working paper is part I of the research project.
[2] This study answers the first and second questions and leaves the third one to next round of this research project.