An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
Legitimacy in the time of COVID-19 can be understood as the ability of leaders to win compliance with new public health orders because people share a widespread belief that everyone is complying. This perspective, building on the logic of game theo...
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| Language: | English |
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World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/355311588754029852/An-Opportunity-to-Build-Legitimacy-and-Trust-in-Public-Institutions-in-the-Time-of-COVID-19 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33715 |
| Summary: | Legitimacy in the time of COVID-19 can
be understood as the ability of leaders to win compliance
with new public health orders because people share a
widespread belief that everyone is complying. This
perspective, building on the logic of game theory, which can
help explain strategic interactions among large numbers of
people in a society or polity, yields a powerful insight:
that governments in developing countries, as the first line
of defense against a life-threatening disease, have received
a windfall of legitimacy. On the one hand, this legitimacy
windfall can be wasted, or worse, used to intensify divisive
politics, grab power, and install government at the
commanding heights of the economy and society, even after
the pandemic recedes. On the other hand, for reform leaders
and international development partners that are motivated to
improve governance for economic development, the crisis
presents opportunities to build trust in public
institutions. In this task, international organizations have
a comparative advantage precisely because they are not part
of domestic political games. But this dynamic may require
changing how donors typically approach corruption in
developing countries (in the context of financial assistance
to countries with institutional weaknesses that predate the
crisis); it may also necessitate change in how reform
leaders in countries use the advantage of external partners
to exert pressure for reform. The availability and strategic
communication of credible, nonideological, and nonpartisan
knowledge could enable societies to change a vicious cycle
of high levels of corruption/low levels of trust to a
virtuous one of high levels of trust and low levels of corruption. |
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