Do governance capacity and legitimacy affect citizens' satisfaction with COVID-19 management? Some evidence from South Asia

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-03-2022-0087
• Published date: 08 August 2022
• Date: 08 August 2022
• Pages: 676-691
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Politics,Public adminstration & management
• Author: Ishtiaq Jamil,Akram Hossain

Do governance capacity and

legitimacy affect citizens’

satisfaction with COVID-19

management? Some evidence from

South Asia

Ishtiaq Jamil

Department of Government, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway, and

Akram Hossain

Department of Government, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway and

Department of Political Science and Sociology, North South University,

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract

Purpose –Theoretically, both democ/ratic legitimacy and government capacity are necessary for successful crisis

management, like the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors argue that there are important variations for pandemic

management in the developed and democratic world. However, are these equally needed in the developing world

where democracy and capacity are present in varying degrees and in some countries with a vast deficit? This article

analyzes how legitimacy and capacity affect citizens’satisfaction with the pandemic managementin South Asia.

Design/methodology/approach –The study is based on a survey of 3,423 randomly selected respondents

from Facebook users in South Asia. The survey data are presented and discussed along with information

derived from secondary sources to put the data in the broader context of the South Asian countries. The

authors apply ordinary linear regression for statistical analysis.

Findings –The findings suggest that citizens are content with the performance of government institutions in

COVID-19 management. They emphasize material well-being, such as relief provisions and financial incentives

during the crisis period. They are, however, less concerned about the legitimacy dimension, although

democracy in South Asia is flawed with excessive restrictions on public freedom during the pandemic. The

contradictory findings may be due to the public orientation towards authoritarian culture and their preference

for strongman rule in crisis management.

Practical implications –The governments in South Asia may systematically use army and police forces to

manage crises as people are more satisfied with their performance during COVID-19 management.

Originality/value–This is the first time data across South Asia have been collected and analyzed about crisis

management.

Keywords COVID-19 pandemic, Crisis management, Governance capacity, Governance legitimacy,

South Asia

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic became a global problem in early 2020 and has persisted even now,

with different strains of the mutating coronavirus. The crisis has caused severe damage,

especially in the developing nations, in terms of travel restrictions and halts on socio-

economic activities as their systems of governance, the people, and the societies have been

and are at risk. People generally feel safe when their government can reduce uncertainties

IJPSM

35,6

676

Funding: The research is funded by the Norad (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) under

the Norwegian Programme for Capacity Development in Higher Education and Research for

Development (NORHED) program (No: NPL-I3/0020).

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/0951-3558.htm

Received 4 April 2022

Revised 21 May 2022

5 June 2022

Accepted 30 June 2022

International Journal of Public

Sector Management

Vol. 35 No. 6, 2022

pp. 676-691

© Emerald Publishing Limited

0951-3558

DOI 10.1108/IJPSM-03-2022-0087

triggered by a crisis. Crises are difficult for governments to manage (Boin and Hart, 2003)

when they are as unfamiliar as the COVID-19 is. Boin et al. (2020, p. 121) call this a “creeping

crisis”that is hard to describe and delineate the challenges and threats and because it “has the

potential to cause serious damage to critical values or systems.”Ansell et al. (2021) define the

COVID-19 pandemic as a turbulent problem that requires robust governance strategies.

In this paper, we put forward theoretical claims made by Christensen and his colleagues

(Christensen et al., 2016;Christensen and Lægreid, 2020a,b), namely, the two core dimensions

of governance –capacity and legitimacy –are the fundamentals for successful crisis

management. Based on a study of Norway, a developed European country, they found that

governance capacity and legitimacy are crucial for crisis management. In this article, we

argue that performance capacity and legitimacy are essential variables for crisis

management in the developed and democratic world. Still, these need to be tested in the

context of the developing world and South Asia, where both democracy and capacity are in

deficit. Therefore, our objective is to analyze whether any of these or both equally influence

citizens’satisfaction with crisis management in South Asia.

In a crisis, people depend on the state more than at other times; they expect their government

to act and address the miseries caused by the extraordinary situation. COVID-19 is an

extraordinary situation that requires governments to take unique and sometimes draconian

measures. In this article, our objectives are, first, to map the level of citizens’evaluation of crisis

management in South Asia, that is, how satisfied the citizens are with the pandemic

management by the public institutions in these countries. Second, we analyze how citizens

evaluate the capacity and legitimacy of government and whether these evaluations affect their

assessment of crisis management. There is widespread variation in the level of success of

COVID-19 management in different countries all over the world (Baniamin et al., 2020b). In

accordance with how Christensen et al. (2016) demonstrate the importance of both structural and

cultural contexts in a country for successful crisis management, we assume that the performance

of governments in handling the COVID-19 pandemic will vary across the South Asian countries.

Our contribution is to look at crisis management in South Asia from a citizens’perspective:

What factors do citizens evaluate as crucial in crisis management? Does South Asia, as a

developing region with a huge population and with authoritarian culture and history,

emphasize different factors of crisis management compared to the West? These questions are

important to ask in the context of South Asia because little is known about either the crisis

response on the part of the governments or the extent to which people are satisfied with the

measures taken by their government. The methodology to support our research objectives

has been quantitative to increase the external validity of the research across South Asia. As

this article emphasizes the significance of cultural contexts for COVID-19 management, we

incorporate some contextual discussions on South Asian countries based on secondary data.

The COVID-19 pandemic in South Asia

South Asia encompasses eight countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka,

Afghanistan, Maldives, and Bhutan. The region’s population density, often crammed in slums in

majorcities coupledwith weak andpoor governance,appearsto be a perfect breedingground for

the coronavirus. It is a home to around 1.9 billion people, i.e. about 25% of the world’spopulation,

but it contributes to only 5% of the world’s gross domestic product (Sarkar et al., 2020). That

means there is poor infrastructure, inadequate access to basic health services, food, and so forth.

South Asia has constantly been exposed to natural and man-made disasters. Several

infectious diseases such as cholera, dengue, and now the COVID-19 have played havoc with

citizens’socio-economic situation, health, and mental state. Already-existing inequalities in

citizens’income levels and livelihoods are likely to worsen in the future. When a crisis hits a

nation, public institutions –central government, local government, police, army, and

Governance

legitimacy

in crisis

management

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