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Decentralization, intergovernmental coordination, and emergency response in East and Southeast Asia: lessons from combatting the COVID-19 pandemic

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  • Sarah Shair-Rosenfield

Abstract

Despite region-wide lessons learned from the SARS pandemic in 2003, country responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in East and Southeast Asia have been very diverse. Outcomes have also varied widely, with some of the world’s lowest per capita case and death rates in Taiwan and Vietnam and extremely high per capita case and death rates in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia. A common feature of many of these countries is their decentralized governance systems, most of which lack clear channels for coordination among different levels of government. I consider how government structure and political centralization shaped emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic in East and Southeast Asia. While the quantitative analysis shows that weak coordination may actually exacerbate problems in executing decentralization when responding to the pandemic, a paired comparison of Indonesia and the Philippines suggests the drawbacks of a decentralized but uncoordinated system.

Suggested Citation

  • Sarah Shair-Rosenfield, 2022. "Decentralization, intergovernmental coordination, and emergency response in East and Southeast Asia: lessons from combatting the COVID-19 pandemic," Working Papers. Collection A: Public economics, governance and decentralization 2209, Universidade de Vigo, GEN - Governance and Economics research Network.
  • Handle: RePEc:gov:wpaper:2209
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    File URL: http://infogen.webs.uvigo.es/WP/WP2209.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy

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