Comparative COVID-19 governance in India and South Africa

What is it about?

With the COVID-19 epidemic, important issues have arisen in various nations about the state's ability to respond to the crisis with agility and to use the crisis in a transformative fashion over the long term. A comparative study of Kerala (India) and Gauteng (South Africa) addresses these topics. The study fills two partial gaps in the literature: (1) inadequate attention to the subnational dimensions of crisis governance; and (2) the temporal dimension of state capacity, noting historical and contextual factors conditioning capacity, with shifts throughout a crisis and beyond. While both territories demonstrated significant agility in response to the crisis, Kerala strengthened its capacities in a way that Gauteng did not, and this had significant implications for these governments' abilities to both manage the pandemic and leverage the pandemic for long-term benefit.

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Why is it important?

The COVID-19 pandemic has offered an illuminating glimpse into governance systems and processes at various geographical scales. greater capacity, intuitively, leads to greater outcomes, and studies indeed demonstrate that governments with higher capabilities were better able to contain the pandemic and cut fatality rates. However, state capacity is not a simple idea. Our comparative case study shows that prior capacity provided by historical contexts may be less relevant for the period of initial crisis response mobilisation – crises may foster new government techniques and tools – and more significant for whether or not this new capacity can consolidate and endure. Our study implies that pre-existing strong capacity weathers crises and is therefore strengthened over time; however, past capacity shortfalls return to impact newly installed capacity, hindering consolidation and leading to further deterioration of strength. Understanding the territorially and historically unique circumstances in how old and new capacities dynamically interact at different times in time over a long crisis is critical. This greater knowledge will be beneficial as the globe transitions from crisis management to recovery and looks to use pandemic response skills for long-term advantages.