Panel 3 - Pandemic
11 November - 1600 CET
Chair:
Philipp Kerler (University of Zürich)
Presenters:
Gabrielle Kruks-Wisner (University of Virginia): Covid-19 in the Village: Citizens, State, and Hybrid Local Actors (Co-authored with Dyuti Saunik, University of Virginia, and Avani Kapur, Foundation for Responsive Governance)
This study examines the critical yet complex role played by local health workers in rural India's response to the Covid-19 pandemic. These predominantly female local government workers form the backbone of India's decentralized public health system. They occupy a unique "hybrid" position as both community members and government representatives – a status that we argue simultaneously empowers and burdens them, particularly during crises. Drawing on firsthand accounts from health workers and citizens (captured by a national network of citizen journalists), we explore how these hybrid local actors navigated expanded pandemic-related responsibilities amidst severe resource constraints and entrenched inequalities. We develop a theoretical framework that explains the capabilities of local health workers as a function of their institutional and social connections. Some were constrained by weak governmental support, others by limited narrow community ties, while many faced a "double constraint" of both. A notable minority, however, were "doubly empowered" by strong state linkages and broad community networks, enabling more effective and inclusive response to the pandemic. We argue that empowering hybrid local actors requires addressing both vertical and horizontal constraints simultaneously. Our theory and findings contribute to broader debates on local governance, policy implementation, and crisis response, revealing how emergencies amplify existing social, political, and economic inequalities, but also how local personnel – when supported by institutional and social ties – can mitigate patterns of neglect.
Lynette Ong (University of Toronto): Outsourcing Surveillance: Online Opinion Management in China (Co-authored with Huihua Nie (University of Toronto & Jesslene Lee, University of Toronto)
The digital age has afforded autocrats new technologies of control, allowing it to co-opt, pre-empt and repress dissent. But, in what ways has it altered the way autocratic states conduct their statecraft? Or reconfigured the contours of state power? In this paper, we address these important research questions by examining how the Chinese state manages online expression of public opinions. Public opinions are a double-edged sword in autocratic setting. While they allow the rulers to gauge public sentiments and become more responsive to citizens’ demands, they can also spiral out of control and destabilize regimes. Thus, the management of online public opinions provides a critical window into understanding how the state conducts its statecraft in the digital age.
Based on an analysis of more than 3,000 public procurement documents, we found that the Chinese state has outsourced various functions of public opinion management to private and state-owned corporations. These companies provide the technical expertise that allow the state to harness big data and artificial intelligence to manage the expression of public opinions online. In-depth analysis of the for-profit firms to which the services have been outsourced and their service functions further reveals the nature of state-business relations and social control in China. This paper draws broader implications for the new performance of statecraft in the digital age, one that is based on state-business collaboration.
Anjali Thomas (Georgia Institute of Technology): How Prior Citizen-State Engagement Shapes Resilience during Crises
Crises are known to disrupt the social and political contract between citizens and the state, disproportionately impacting marginalized communities. What is less well understood is whether prior experiences interfacing with local governing institutions shape political responsiveness during hard times. We argue that while crises generally disrupt the social contract between marginalized citizens and the state, prior experience with navigating government bureaucracies and petitioning elected representatives should increase the likelihood of responsiveness of state actors. We test this argument in the context of the migration shock that engulfed residents of Mumbai’s vast informal settlements during the pandemic, forcing widespread urban-to-rural out-migration during the lockdowns. We leverage a factorial field experiment implemented prior to the pandemic in Mumbai’s informal settlements. The experiment fielded two interventions: the first provided citizens with assistance with bureaucratic requirements involved with applying for a municipal water connection. The second assisted citizens with political coordination to mount collective pressure on government officials to demand piped water. Our findings show that households who received either or both interventions prior to the pandemic were more likely to contact bureaucratic and political actors during the crisis. Moreover, citizens assigned to the bureaucratic assistance intervention prior to the pandemic were more likely to elicit political responsiveness. However, neither intervention working separately or in combination increased citizens’ satisfaction with political actors’ responsiveness during the crisis. We interpret these results in the context of low state capacity during crises, with implications for how and when crises can strengthen citizen-state engagement in hard times.
