Dealing with COVID-19 in the Middle East

PRIO Paper

Gjerløw, Haakon & Jørgen Jensehaugen (2020) Dealing with COVID-19 in the Middle East, PRIO Paper. Oslo: PRIO.

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Political systems shape both the capacity and the motivations of political leaders in dealing with emergencies. In this paper, we investigate global responses to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic to identify systematic differences in different regime types, ranging from democratic to autocratic. In particular, we examine in depth how countries in the MENA region have responded to the pandemic, and compare these responses to global trends. We divide the policy responses into two broad categories: policies for closure and policies for economic support. We then investigate the relative use of these different tools in different countries during the spring of 2020. Taking account of the severity of the outbreak, economic capacity, and capacity of the health systems, we find that the most democratic countries were less likely to implement the most restrictive closure policies, and more likely to adopt high levels of economic support, compared to the most autocratic countries.

03/07/2020
COVID-19 in the Middle East: Different Regimes, Different Responses

​In May, a new PRIO Middle East Centre project started. The project, entitled 'Reacting to COVID-19 Across the MENA region', aims to explore how Middle East states reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and what these varied reactions say about the regimes in question, combining statistical analysis of regional patterns with five case studies: Jordan, Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Palestine. The case studies are published in the MidEast Policy Brief series, with an accompanying PRIO Paper presenting the statistical analysis.

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