© Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (New Brunswick) This publication is the work of the Spring 2021 Capstone class of the United Nations and Global Policy Studies Master of Arts program (UNMA), Political Science Department, Rutgers University (New Brunswick) June 2021 Application for permission to reproduce or translate all or any part of this publication should be made to: UNMA Secretariat Hickman Hall 89 George Street New Brunswick, NJ 08901 Email: [email protected] Title: Covid-19 Under Democracy and Autocracy Editor: Dr. Roland Rich Cover Design: Ian DeFalco Layout: Camilla Bober ISBN 978-0-578-92527-1 CONTENTS Contributors 1 Chapter 1 A Project is Born 4 Roland Rich Chapter 2 Australia’s Covid-19 Response: 10 The Achilles Heel Shahinaz Abdelhamid Chapter 3 Brazil: Negligence and Populism during 34 a Global Health Crisis Gabriela Casco Chapter 4 Cuba’s Vaunted Medical System Faces Covid-19 54 Javier Nino Chapter 5 Federalism, the EU, and Human Rights 68 in Germany under COVID-19 Camilla Bober Chapter 6 Russia: A Contest between Science and Denial 94 Amar Wason Chapter 7 South Africa Faces Covid-19 116 Delaney Charydczak Chapter 8 Taiwan: A Near Perfect Response 128 to the Coronavirus Pandemic Ryan Prieto Chapter 9 The Impact of Covid-19 on Elections 148 in Uganda Susan Ombwayo Chapter 10 The United Kingdom: Covid-19 162 and the Decay of Democracy Arsanious Hanna Chapter 11 Vietnam: Looking beyond Regime Type 182 Daphnée A.M. Fleurant Chapter 12 Conclusions, Constatations and Concerns 196 Roland Rich Bibliography 224 1 CONTRIBUTORS Shahinaz Abdelhamid received her B.S. in Public Health in 2018, and M.A. in Political Science in 2021, both from Rutgers University. She has interned at the National Institute for Reproductive Health conducting policy research on health disparities, and she has been a research assistant on Middle East politics. Camilla Bober holds a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Psychology and Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University and completed the School of Arts and Sciences Honors Program before graduating as Master of Arts in Political Science from Rutgers University in 2021. She has held internship positions at PEN America, the United Nations International Labour Organization, and the International Rescue Committee. Gabriela Casco holds B.A and M.A. (Political Science: United Nations and Global Policy Studies) degrees from Rutgers University. She has worked as an Immigration Legal Assistant and as an Unaccompanied Children Intern with the International Rescue Committee. She has conducted research on Central American environmental rights. Delaney Charydczak holds Bachelor of Arts (2019) and Master of Arts (2021) degrees from Rutgers University. She has worked as an Agency Aide at the Middlesex County Prosecutors Office. She undertook internships with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and with the Piscataway Board of Education. Daphnée Fleurant holds three Master’s degrees from Rutgers University including her 2021 MA in Political Science (United Nations and Global Policy Studies). She was a commissioned officer in the US Army for nine years. She has worked in Human Resources in the private sector for the last eleven years. 2 Arsanious Hanna holds Bachelor of Arts (2019) and Master of Arts (2021) degrees from Rutgers University and is undertaking his J.D. at the University of Maryland School of Law. He has internship experience with municipal, county, state, and federal governments, as well as with non-profit academic centers, and was previously employed as a law clerk in private practice. Javier Nino earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Kean University and a Master of Arts in Political Science from Rutgers. Javier was a military intelligence system maintainer and integrator for six years before earning his commission in the U.S Army in the Aviation Corps. Susan Ombwayo holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Montclair State University and a Master of Arts in Political Science (United Nations and Global Policy Studies) from Rutgers University. Susan’s background includes organizing and coordinating multiple community-based development programs for non-profit organizations. Ryan Prieto holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Business and Political Science from the University of South Florida and a Master of Arts in Political Science from Rutgers University. He has worked to support inner-city youth in New York city and will continue this work in other settings and countries. Roland Rich is Director of the United Nations and Global Policy Studies program at Rutgers University (New Brunswick). He holds Arts and Law degrees from the University of Sydney and Masters (International Law) and Doctorate (Political Science) degrees from the Australian National University. He is a former Australian Ambassador to Laos and a former head of the United Nations Democracy Fund and the United Nations Office for Partnerships. Amar Wason holds a Bachelor of Arts (2019) and Master of Arts (2021) degrees from Rutgers University. He was the author of Disputed Territory, a political op-ed column in the school newspaper and interned with New Jersey State Senator Linda Greenstein. 3 4 Chapter 1 A PROJECT IS BORN Roland Rich May 31, 2021 We lived through the pandemic. As I looked at my students on the screen, I knew we had this in common. Some had suffered more than others, but here we all were facing a new semester together, their final semester. Should we carry on in business-as-usual mode? Or should we acknowledge this insistent reality? I had already retired twice, once from the Australian foreign service and once from the United Nations secretariat, when I began a new career as a professor in the recently launched United Nations and Global Policy Studies Master’s Program (UNMA) in the Political Science Department at Rutgers University (New Brunswick). I had developed two courses, one on problems of democratic consolidation and one on economic development in the global South, when the then Director, Professor Eric Davis, asked me to develop the Capstone syllabus which would be the required finishing course for our students. I was surprised by this assignment, but perhaps Professor Davis somehow saw my inexperience and naïveté as virtues. My investigation of other courses tended to divide the capstone syllabi into three types. One type, far more common in the hard sciences, was as an extension of the professor’s research whereby the students would conduct experiments and undertake research as a contribution to the seminal question the professor was tackling. The other two types can be described as deepening or broadening syllabi. The deepening syllabi 5 drilled down on an important topic or theory, while the broadening syllabi tried to cover a broad range of issues. I ended up borrowing from all three concepts. The syllabus would cover many of the issues dealt with in the program allowing students to fill gaps in their knowledge and review areas of interest. The assignments would, however, allow students to drill down on questions of particular interest to them. The students would, in consultation with the professor, select the issues they wished to cover in depth in the three individual assignments: a policy brief, a review essay and an academic lecture. And the course would have a faint underlying question, of research interest to the professor, which would pop up at various points. The underlying question was: Does Democracy Matter? I had taught the capstone course for five Spring semesters, improving and refining it, but sticking to the original structure. The students responded well and the best review essays from the course invariably won the annual UNMA essay contest. But as the Spring 2021 semester arrived, the question posed in the opening paragraph came into sharp focus. Was it business as usual, or should we try something different? I would let the students decide. The first major written assignment for the course was a chapter-length policy brief on a topic of their choosing accepted by the professor. The choice was whether to continue with that assignment or change it to something more focused and communal. My suggestion was that each student would write a chapter-length study of Covid-19 in one country under the general heading Covid-19 Under Democracy and Autocracy. I dangled, as an incentive, the possibility that, depending on the quality of the assignments, we could put them together as chapters and publish an e-book. I directed the students to a wonderful website from the University of Melbourne which had been aggregating academic and journalistic studies of the pandemic from around the world – https://www.democratic-decay.org/ – so that they could make an informed choice. I 6 noted, mimicking good UN practice, that we would need a consensus of all the students to adopt this approach. The following week, that consensus crystallized. Indeed, in UN- speak, the proposal was adopted by acclamation. Of the various approaches to studying a pandemic, being a political science class, the chosen approach was to ask how the pandemic was handled in democracies and autocracies. This question presented itself starkly from the very first months when China dealt successfully with community transmission through a sudden, rigid, and toughly- enforced shut down. Democratic nations like Italy and Spain were unable to replicate this feat. Government type was therefore a starting point for the enquiry, but it would not hold a monopoly on that enquiry. The students were asked to determine whether there were other features, historical, geographic, or social, that contributed to understanding how nations dealt with the pandemic. The next stage was to select the countries to be reviewed by the ten students in the capstone class. I put forward a small sample to gauge interest.