After almost 1200 days, Taiwan will disband the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) and reclassify
#COVID19
as a level 4 disease starting from May 1, which means I (and my wonderful coauthors) have been writing about Taiwan's COVID experiences more than 1000 days.. a 🧵 1/n
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It all started b/c writing felt therapeutic at the time and also b/c I completely disagreed w/ crappy arguments like "Authoritarian China is better at controlling covid..."
Since then, I have several pieces on Taiwan's COVID governance, esp its success and limits. 2/n
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This popular science article lays the foundation of my research inquiry: 1) what are the roles of regime type and state capacity in health crisis governance? 2) what accounts for Taiwan's success at the early stage? 3/n
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In answering what accounts for Taiwan's success, this article discusses how the SARS experience is not enough and identifies three important factors. One very factor was the successful mask policy. 4/n
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We further analyze why Taiwan, against the backdrop of global mask shortages in early 2020, could mobilize society quickly to become self-sufficient in masks. Answer: successful virus securitization as a national security threat from China. 5/n
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A side effect of successful securitization is that it might be harder to desecuritize its citizens, as shown in this op-ed. Two waves of public opinion data showing that despite govt being ready to coexist w/ COVID in mid-2022, the public was not. 6/n
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As I am in the process of collecting the third wave data, on the eve of dissolving CECC, preliminary data show that half of the public has been desecuritized and does not view COVID as a national threat anymore.
The journal article version is still in the pipeline. 7/n
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On the effect of democracy, this book chapter discusses the role of democracy in Taiwan's COVID governance. In particular, we argue that democratic governments resort to persuasion instead of coercion to enhance citizen compliance. 8/n
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A clear example is the quarantine policy. In crafting high compliance, TW government relies on (1) a comprehensive policy mix; (2) constant and various policy communication; and (3) street-level bureaucrats during policy implementation 9/n
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On state capacity, we put Taiwan's experience into comparative perspective. This article shows that low-capacity states (Thailand and Indonesia) were more reactive, limited to border-related measures, and were more constrained in policy tools 11/n
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In contrast, more-capable states (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) initiated crisis response faster, mobilized national resources more extensively, and utilized diverse policy tools when the virus risk level was still low. 12/n
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In sum, TW
#COVID
governance at early stage was successful b/c it was viewed as a nat. security threat. State capacity and state-market relations impact speed and scope of what govt prioritized to do. Demo does not matter for policy choices, but it matters for the process. 13/n
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In TW, the first point of politicization was vaccine in mid-2021, and from there, vaccine politics became normal politics, and the rest as well (also b/c it was in the electoral cycle). 14/n
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TW's experience deserves to be included in the comparative perspective. I constantly feel frustrated seeing TW's data not even included.
#BEEFNetflix
shows anger is a strong inner drive. I hope I have harvested that anger into good use😂. .
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#Taiwan
🇹🇼
#COVID19
🦠 data have been eliminated from
@OurWorldInData
(OWID).
Taiwan's exclusion comes as a result of the decision to replace their entire time series with data from the
@WHO
, which categorizes Taiwan under China.
Read their statement:
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I still have a few papers I need to wrap up and bring closure to my COVID research. Mark a milestone for myself. Hopefully by the end of this year. 16/16
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