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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Main Author:	Khemani, Stuti
Format:	Policy Note
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	CORRUPTION PUBLIC HEALTH CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PUBLIC HEALTH REGULATION HEALTH WORKERS ACCOUNTABILITY LEGITIMACY PUBLIC TRUST POLITICS
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

id	okr-10986-33715
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-337152021-09-16T18:20:07Z An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19 Khemani, Stuti CORRUPTION PUBLIC HEALTH CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PUBLIC HEALTH REGULATION HEALTH WORKERS ACCOUNTABILITY LEGITIMACY PUBLIC TRUST POLITICS 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. 2020-05-07T20:10:33Z 2020-05-07T20:10:33Z 2020-05 Policy Note 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 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Economic & Sector Work Economic & Sector Work :: Policy Note
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	CORRUPTION PUBLIC HEALTH CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PUBLIC HEALTH REGULATION HEALTH WORKERS ACCOUNTABILITY LEGITIMACY PUBLIC TRUST POLITICS
spellingShingle	CORRUPTION PUBLIC HEALTH CORONAVIRUS COVID-19 PANDEMIC RESPONSE PUBLIC HEALTH REGULATION HEALTH WORKERS ACCOUNTABILITY LEGITIMACY PUBLIC TRUST POLITICS Khemani, Stuti An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
description	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.
format	Policy Note
author	Khemani, Stuti
author_facet	Khemani, Stuti
author_sort	Khemani, Stuti
title	An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
title_short	An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
title_full	An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
title_fullStr	An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
title_full_unstemmed	An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19
title_sort	opportunity to build legitimacy and trust in public institutions in the time of covid-19
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	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
_version_	1764479361307639808

An Opportunity to Build Legitimacy and Trust in Public Institutions in the Time of COVID-19

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