Political capacity and pandemic containment: comparing and contrasting COVID-19 in Canada and the United States. Issue 1 (2nd January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Immormino, Joseph; Stowell, Nicholas
• Is Part Of: Canadian foreign policy. Volume 28:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 22
• Page End: 39
• Publication Date: 2022-01-02
• Subjects: Canada -- coronavirus -- covid-19 -- epidemic -- generalized additive model -- most similar systems design -- outbreak -- pandemic -- political capacity -- public policy -- relative political capacity -- relative political extraction -- relative political reach -- state capacity -- United States; Canada -- Foreign relations -- Periodicals; 327.71005
• DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2021.2006252
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1192-6422

Abstract

ABSTRACT: From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a deluge of research has sought to explain both between- and within-country variation in mortality. Research has focused primarily on policy measures and underlying population and socioeconomic characteristics. While those factors have their proper place in our global understanding of this once in a generation crisis, they do not explain the divergent outcomes observed between similar nations, such as Canada and the United States. This research adapts a Generalized Additive Model (GAM) to the unique case of these North American neighbors and illustrates the role that timely policy adoption and the state's capacity to administer policy programs play in effective pandemic containment. By applying our empirical design sub-nationally, we demonstrate that our findings are robust to comparisons made within individual nations, as well as across an aggregation of the two countries' subnational units. In doing so, we provide substantive evidence of the preeminent role that the government's political capacity and policy responsiveness play in mitigating the worst effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.