[Editor’s note]

As the second part of the Pandemic and Democratic Governance in Asia series, Jung Kim, Assistant Professor at the University of North Korean Studies, explores the outperformance of South Korea’s COVID-19 pandemic policy trade-off between health and the economy. The author throws a question of why the national performances of the trade-off between lives and livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic have varied among nations. This study shows that social risk, rather than social capital, such as social trust or confidence in authorities, is the key factor of large-scale collective action that explains the variation in national pandemic policy performances. This theory is supported by a descriptive comparison of pandemic policy performances across OECD countries over quarterly periods in 2020, and an examination of the determinants of COVID-19 pandemic policy optimization. He further explains that the agility of citizens in South Korea to the pandemic is decisive to the successful pandemic policy optimization.

Introduction

How have policymakers and citizens responded to the COVID-19 pandemic policy trade-off between health and the economy? Why have some nations succeeded in minimizing the trade-off between protecting lives and protecting livelihoods, but not others? Why and how has South Korea outperformed most other advanced democracies in dealing with the trade-off? [1]

Building on a growing literature that analyzes the trade-off between health and the economy in designing and implementing national COVID-19 policy responses (Desierto and Koyama 2020; Cheibub, Hong, and Przeworski 2020; Ginsburg and Versteeg 2020), this study attempts to answer the above questions examining the case of South Korea in a comparative perspective. This research argues that contra conventional wisdom that social capital is the explanans of variation of national pandemic policy performances, social risk is much more important to facilitate large-scale collective action, which is the political foundation of voluntary civic compliance with government non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) policy recommendation and ultimately successful pandemic policy optimization between health and the economy.

A simple theoretical framework of pandemic policy optimization will be introduced in the next section. The third describes a quarterly comparison of national policy responses across OECD countries in 2020. The following section provides a case study analysis on the determinants of pandemic policy optimization in South Korea. ■

[1] Why some nations have outperformed others in vaccinating against COVID-19 is the question that this study will explore in the next round of research project. For now, I suggest that the better the health performance of a nation is, the poorer the vaccination performance of it has. See the appendix for a preliminary association between the total COVID-19 cases per million and the people vaccinated per hundred in OECD countries as of May 14, 2021.

• Jung Kim is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of North Korean Studies, South Korea. He teaches courses on International Relations in East Asia and Political Economy of the Two Koreas, among others. Prior to this, from 2009-2015, he was a lecturer at the Underwood International College and Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University. During this time, Mr. Kim was also a Chief Researcher at The East Asia Institute. He pursued his Bachelors and Masters in Political Science at Korea University and went on to pursue his Ph.D. at Yale University. His research interests include Comparative Politics and International Relations in East Asia.

• Typeset by Junghye Suh, Research Associate
  For inquiries: 02 2277 1683 (ext. 207) I jhush@eai.or.kr