A Tale of Two City-States

February 17, 2021 6:22 AM

The interaction of social mobilisation and trust in government in public health responses. - 'This paper compares the early pandemic response in Singapore and Hong Kong, two Asian city-states of similar sizes, a shared history of SARS, and advanced medical systems. Although both were able to contain the virus, they did so using two very different approaches. Drawing upon data from a cross-national, probability sample Internet survey conducted in May 2020 as well as media and mobility data, we argue that the different approaches were the result of the relative strength of civil society vs. the state at the outset of the outbreak.'

The paper, published in the journal of Global Public Health, looked at the time period between March to August 2020.

[it's interesting enough I'm letting go the description of Singapore as 'East Asian']

posted by cendawanita (5 comments total)

Yah, it's an interesting article. I don't have time to review the statistics, but to the extent that they're sound, the conclusion is pretty interesting (first paragraph from the discussion):

This paper analyses the responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hong Kong and Singapore: two East Asian city-states with many common features at the onset of the pandemic. And while the two city-states performed relatively well in terms of containing their outbreaks at a global-level through early 2020, the factors that explain their performance differ between the two settings. In Hong Kong, the 2019 pro-democracy protest movement contributed to low governmental trust but also bolstered civil society’s network and experience in collective mobilisation. Instead of relying on government directives, its civil society-led model mobilised resources to overcome barriers, increase compliance, and pressure the authorities to tighten measures. In contrast, in Singapore, a state-led response model brought early success but failed to stem a sudden outbreak among its segregated migrant population and provided necessary care to the under-privileged, partly because civil society actors were marginalised in the country’s initial responses.

The whole discussion is worth reading.
posted by Alex404 at 6:55 AM on February 17, 2021 [4 favorites]

I think there's probably space for a broader investigation of the degree to which social solidarity and strong social networks (whether via the state or civil society) correlated well with resistance when compared to more atomised societies.
posted by jaduncan at 7:27 AM on February 17, 2021

Definitely. Once you create the networks, it can be activated for any number of purposes. Probably why Singapore and Malaysia (utilising the lessons learned from the British handling of post-ww2 communism) makes a priority to target that dimension to keep the civil society fractured.

But an agile govt should be one that can tap community mobilisation, which again, Singapore is very good at (in that its partisan machinery across the political divide is synonymous with grassroots organization). The fact that the case study caught a moment of weakness is an indication of the general lack of health of that particular arm (and something China hasn't yet suffered in similar ratios), because i would say public trust is also fostered by this ability of the public sector to take over the role of civil society.
posted by cendawanita at 9:17 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]

HMMMMM. Interesting. cendawanita, thank you for posting this!
posted by brainwane at 10:04 AM on February 17, 2021

That is fascinating to know. I don't think I'll have time to read the whole paper, but I could sure use a bullet point or two to convincingly explain to my HK family and relatives that, actually, the protestors and collective action have been pivotal to containing the outbreak. Many of the older people I know are often skeptical or unsupportive of the protestors and probably the very concept of civil society.

Meanwhile, on an abstract level it makes a lot of sense, in that however technocratically advanced any system of government is, authoritarian control is ultimately brittle (to use engineer's jargon), and thus public commons crises are more effectively handled when the people believe they're in this thing together.
posted by polymodus at 2:18 PM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]