Book
How States Respond to Crisis

Pandemic Governance Across the Global South

BOOK IN PRODUCTION | SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION FEBRUARY 2025

We expect the state to matter in times of crisis to better provide for and protect their populations. But how is it, precisely, that the quality of the state matters? This book speaks to this question through comparative study of how diverse states in the Global South responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, the largest global crisis in recent memory. 

Bringing together insights from quantitative cross-country analysis and detailed country case studies, the  work analyses the ways in which the quality of the state — in terms of its capacity, authority, and legitimacy — affected pandemic governance and health outcomes. 

The volume includes seven case studies authored by leading scholars of each country provide deep and specific insight into these relationships in Bolivia, Ghana, Nicaragua, Peru, the Philippines, Tanzania, and Vietnam. Extending beyond a literature on the state based heavily on study of Global North contexts, this volume sheds new light on the nature of the state and its role in crisis response and development. 

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Editor

Rachel M. Gisselquist

Andrea Vaccaro

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February 2025

Oxford University Press,

© UNU-WIDER 2025

Table of contents
  1. Part I: Introduction
    1. What COVID-19 can tell us about the state: A global look at the first year of the pandemic
    Rachel M. Gisselquist, Andrea Vaccaro
  2. Part II: Sub-Saharan Africa
    2. Harnessing residual capacity: Ghana's struggle against health system constraints in the COVID-19 response
    Kofi Takyi Asante
    More Working Paper | Residual capacity and the political economy of pandemic response in Ghana
  3. 3. The effects of limited capacity, ideational legitimacy, and weak authority on the Tanzanian state response to COVID-19
    Amy S. Patterson
    More Working Paper | The Tanzanian state response to COVID-19
  4. Part III: Asia
    4. Pandemic populism amid weak state capacity in the Philippines
    Julio C. Teehankee
    More Working Paper | Duterte’s pandemic populism
  5. 5. Local governance and COVID-19's health impact: Evidence from Vietnam
    Duc Anh Dang
    More Working Paper | Does an effective government lower COVID-19’s health impact?
  6. Part IV: Latin America
    6. Decentralization, state capacity and inequality: : Explaining COVID-19 outcomes in Bolivia
    Calla Hummel
    More Working Paper | Governance and COVID-19 in Bolivia
  7. 7. The devasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Peru: The undermining role of vertical health policies in health systems
    Camila Gianella
    More Working Paper | Peruvian response to COVID-19 pandemic
  8. 8. Nicaragua’s puzzling pandemic response: The undermining role of vertical health policies in health systems
    Mateo C. Jarquín
    More Working Paper | COVID-19 and the state: Nicaragua case study
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