Why has COVID-19 exacted its greatest toll in nations that have some claim to being Southeast Asia’s most democratic? asks analyst Sebastian Strangio. The reality is complex than regime type, he writes for The Diplomat:
Probably that the best predictor of a country’s COVID-19 success is less its specific regime type than its levels of state capacity and public trust in government (to say nothing of its past experience with contagions like SARS), characteristics that cut across different types of political systems. In the end, democracy matters – but only insofar as it is able to deliver.
The presidents of two core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – Derek Mitchell, President of the National Democratic Institute, and Dr. Daniel Twining, President of the International Republican Institute – today joined Dr. Alyssa Ayres, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, to deliver Congressional testimony on Stemming a Receding Tide: Human Rights and Democratic Values in Asia (above).
@NDI‘s President @AmbDMitchell testifies before the @HouseForeign Asia-Pacific Subcommittee on the state of #democracy in #Asia.
Watch here: 👇👇👇https://t.co/u4Gn4bibLN— National Democratic Institute (@NDI) September 22, 2020
@IRIglobal’s @DCTwining testifies before @HouseForeign about causes for both concern and optimism in the Asia-Pacific region and the billions of people across Asia yearning to live in free, prosperous and just societies. WATCH: https://t.co/XxbdZLPXLv
— IRI (@IRIglobal) September 22, 2020
