Regime Type As A Factor Of Effective Policy During Crises: The Case Of COVID-19

The global pandemic of COVID-19 has brough upon a vast number of challenges both on micro and on macro levels. States had to make fast decisions in order to prevent and mitigate of negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every decision, made during the process of policymaking, has influenced the social life in one way or another. Prior to the global pandemic, there had been a consensus in the academic literature in regard to effectiveness of decision-making towards international shocks. It was deemed that mechanisms of public reasoning and democratic institutes determine the successfulness of crisis management. However, in regard to such a serious crisis as COVID-19 pandemic, which has influenced almost every sphere of social life, a burden of doubt can be laid upon the thesis that democratic institutes are the most effective. In case, when effective preventive and mitigative measures include limiting civil freedoms, and the speed of decision-making is extremely important, one could pose a question, whether authoritarian regimes, which are capable of bypassing certain institutions, and are somewhat capable of not considering the opinions of the interest groups, could be more effective in preventing and mitigating the consequences of covid-19? Currently, there are debates in the academic field, whether there exists a relationship between regime type and effectiveness of undertaken preventive and mitigative policy. Using Multiple Regression Model, this study shows the existence of such relationship, and depicts its nature.