Panel Overview: The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical need for strong state capacity to ensure effective pandemic preparedness and response. This panel combines four papers examining different dimensions of state capacity, governance, and institutional dynamics influencing crisis response and public health outcomes. The panel aims to provide insights on how states can enhance their institutional frameworks for more robust pandemic preparedness and response.
Paper Summaries:
1. Governing Filth: “Wet Markets” and the Politics of Disease Origins (Emma Willoughby, University of Michigan) This paper investigates governance narratives surrounding “wet markets” and their connection to disease emergence. It reveals how international organizations and governments construct narratives rooted in historical notions of hygiene and cleanliness, shaping global regulatory approaches, and influencing health policy through constructed policy objects.
2. Governors and the Role of State Legislatures during Crisis Response in the US: A Four-State Comparative Case Study (Dr. Kasia Klasa, University of Michigan) This paper examines the evolving relationship between governors and state legislatures during the pandemic, focusing on four U.S. states: Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. It shows how state legislatures increasingly influence crisis response, reshape disaster preparedness, and how intra-state partisanship impacts state capacity for effective pandemic response.
3. The Myth of Bureaucratic Autonomy in the United States (Dr. Ann Keller, Berkeley School of Public Health) This paper traces the ideological roots of U.S. civil service reforms and explores how political controls shape bureaucratic autonomy. It argues that instances of agency independence often result from political choices rather than inherent power, using the CDC’s operations as an example to illustrate variations in agency capacity and political control during routine and crisis periods.
4. The Korean Centers for Disease Control’s Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons for the United States (Dr. Sarah Rozenblum, Cornell University) This paper provides a comparative analysis of how the U.S. and South Korea leveraged public health agencies during the pandemic. It explains why the U.S. sidelined established agencies like the CDC in favor of ad hoc advisory bodies, while South Korea empowered its KCDC, emphasizing electoral incentives, agency capacity, and political control in leaders’ advisory choices.