Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-995ml Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T13:08:33.882Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Plague on Politics? The COVID Crisis, Expertise, and the Future of Legitimation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2021

MICHAEL A. NEBLO*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University, United States
JEREMY L. WALLACE*
Affiliation:
Cornell University, United States
*
Michael A. Neblo, Professor, Department of Political Science, The Ohio State University, United States, neblo.1@osu.edu.
Jeremy L. Wallace, Associate Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University, United States, wallace@cornell.edu.

Abstract

Governments rely more and more on experts to manage the increasingly complex problems posed by a growing, diversifying, globalizing world. Surplus technocracy, however, usually comes with deficits of democracy. While especially true in liberal regimes, authoritarian states often face parallel dynamics. Recent trends illustrate how technocratic encroachment on civil society’s prerogatives can provoke populist backlash. Such cycles can build toward crises by eroding the legitimacy citizens invest in regimes. Surprisingly, by throwing both the need for and limits of expertise into sharp relief, the politics of COVID-19 create a novel opportunity to disrupt these trends. We assess how this opportunity may be unfolding in two crucial cases, the United States and China, and, more briefly, South Korea. We conclude by sketching some theoretical considerations to guide a geographically expanded and temporally extended research agenda on this important opportunity to slow or reverse a trend plaguing modern governance.

Type
Letter
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

The Associated Press. 2020. “China Didn’t Warn Public of Likely Pandemic for 6 Key Days.” AP News, The Associated Press. April 15, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/68a9e1b91de4ffc166acd6012d82c2f9.Google Scholar
AP-NORC Poll. 2020. “US Course at Record Low, Trump Sinks on Virus.” AP News, The Associated Press. July 26, 2020. https://apnews.com/43a096bc2bcf376de04b696c5143ee99.Google Scholar
Axios/Survey Monkey. 2018. “Only Half of Americans Have Faith in Democracy.” Axios. November 5, 2018. https://www.axios.com/poll-americans-faith-in-democracy-2e94a938-4365-4e80-9fb6-d9743d817710.html.Google Scholar
Baum, Matthew, Lazer, David, Ognyanova, Katherine, Quintana, Alexi, Volpe, John Della, Druckman, James, Perliset, Roy, et al. 2020. “50-State COVID-19 Survey: Update on the Approval of Executive Performance during COVID-19.” Report. The COVID-19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences across States. https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/docs/covid-survey-executive-approval.Google Scholar
China Media Project. 2020. “The Li Wenliang Storm.” China Media Project. February 18, 2020. http://chinamediaproject.org/2020/02/18/the-li-wenliang-storm/.Google Scholar
Chun, Gwan-yul. 2020. “‘The World of Koreans’ Revealed by COVID-19: Surprising Responses.” Sisain. June 2, 2020. https://www.sisain.co.kr/news/articleView.html?idxno=42132.Google Scholar
Feng, Emily. 2020. “Meet Dr. Zhong Nanshan, The Public Face of the COVID-19 Fight in China.” All Things Considered. April 15, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/04/15/835308147/meet-dr-zhong-nanshan-the-public-face-of-the-COVID-19-fight-in-china.Google Scholar
Grimmelikhuijsen, Stephan, and Knies, Eva. 2017. “Validating a Scale for Citizen Trust in Government Organizations.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 83 (3): 583601.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1975. Legitimation crisis. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 2020. “Dans cette crise, il nous faut agir dans le savoir explicite de notre non-savoir.” Le Monde. April 10, 2020. https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2020/04/10/jurgen-habermas-dans-cette-crise-il-nous-faut-agir-dans-le-savoir-explicite-de-notre-non-savoir_6036178_3232.html.Google Scholar
Lenard, Patti Tamara, and Macdonald, Terry. 2021. “Democracy versus Security as Standards of Political Legitimacy: The Case of National Policy on Irregular Migrant Arrivals.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (2): 371–87.Google Scholar
Lee, So-yeon. 2021. “The 24th Public Perception Survey.” Seoul: Hankook Research. https://hrcopinion.co.kr/archives/17402.Google Scholar
Li, Junru. 2018. “Consultative Democracy, People’s Democracy.” China Today. March 1, 2018. http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/ctenglish/2018/zdtj/201803/t20180301_800118954.html.Google Scholar
Lipton, Eric, Abby, Goodnough, Shear, Michael D., Twohey, Megan, Mandavilli, Apoorva, Fink, Sheri, and Walker, Mark. 2020. “The CDC Waiting Its Entire Existence for This Moment. What Went Wrong?New York Times, June 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/03/us/cdc-coronavirus.html.Google Scholar
McIvor, David W. 2020. “Toward a Critical Theory of Collaborative Governance.” Administrative Theory & Praxis 42 (4): 501–16.Google Scholar
Minzner, Carl. 2019. End of an Era: How China’s Authoritarian Revival is Undermining Its Rise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Moore, Alfred. 2021. “Three Models of Democratic Expertise.” Perspectives on Politics 19 (2): 553–63.Google Scholar
Neblo, Michael A. 2015. Deliberative Democracy between Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Neblo, Michael A., Minozzi, William, Esterling, Kevin M., Green, Jon, Kingzette, Jonathon, and David, M. J. Lazer. 2017. “The Need for a Translational Science of Democracy.” Science 355 (6328): 914–15.Google Scholar
Schedler, Andreas. 2013. The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral Authoritarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schellekens, Philip, and Sourrouille, Diego. 2020. “COVID-19 Mortality in Rich and Poor Countries: A Tale of Two Pandemics?” World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 9260. World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Svolik, Milan. 2012. The Politics of Authoritarian Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Monitor Trend. 2020. “Perception Survey on Government Response to National Disaster.” https://www.trendmonitor.co.kr/tmweb/trend/allTrend/detail.do?bIdx=1884&code=0404&trendType=CKOREA.Google Scholar
van der Meer, Tom, and Hakhverdian, Armen. 2017, “Political Trust as the Evaluation of Process and Performance: A Cross-National Study of 42 European Countries.” Political Studies 65 (1): 81102.Google Scholar
Wallace, Jeremy. 2020. “The New Normal: A Neopolitical Turn in China’s Reform Era.” In Citizens and the State in Authoritarian Regimes: Comparing China and Russia, eds. Koesel, Karrie J., Bunce, Valerie J., and Chen Weiss, Jessica, 3158. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
White, Avery, and Neblo, Michael A.. 2021. “Capturing the Public: Beyond Technocracy & Populism in the U.S. Administrative State.” Dædalus: The Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences 150 (3): 172–87.Google Scholar
Wu, Cary. 2020. “How Chinese Citizens View Their Government’s Coronavirus Response.” The Conversation. June 4, 2020. https://theconversation.com/how-chinese-citizens-view-their-governments-coronavirus-response-139176.Google Scholar
Xu, Zhangrun. 2020. “Viral Alarm: When Fury Overcomes Fear (愤怒的人民已不再恐惧),” Trans. Geremie Barmé. ChinaFile. February 10, 2020. http://www.chinafile.com/reporting-opinion/viewpoint/viral-alarm-when-fury-overcomes-fear.Google Scholar