The role of local governments in South Korea's COVID‐19 response

Yunji Kim and Yeong Ah Jeong

Public Administration & Development, 2023, vol. 43, issue 2, 120-128

Abstract: Research on COVID‐19 responses has largely focused on national governments. Meanwhile, the crisis management literature has noted that such “transboundary crises” require collaborative responses. What role can local governments play? How do citizen perceptions matter? We look for answers in South Korea that has been considered a model case for managing COVID‐19. We use data from policy briefs, news reports, and local government websites to show that local governments successfully implemented national initiatives while modifying them to fit local needs and also actively planned and executed local initiatives to address needs that the central government did not address. Based on 2020 national survey data (N = 16,258), we find that COVID‐19 cases and deaths are linked to citizen perceptions of vulnerability to COVID‐19 and its effect on wellbeing, but not to evaluations of other residents' responses (e.g. following mask mandates, social distancing) or local government responses.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1986

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:padxxx:v:43:y:2023:i:2:p:120-128

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Public Administration & Development from Blackwell Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().