Public policies developed during the COVID-19 pandemic: A comparative review

Covid-19, which emerged in Wuhan, China in December 2019, spread to other countries in a short time and then to all continents and became a pandemic. Covid-19 has caused one of the most serious health crises in the last century. In order to fight Covid-19, states have taken various measures. As in all states of the world, various measures have been taken in Turkey to struggle Covid-19 as well. Although the Covid-19 measures taken by the states differ from each other, the main aim of all of them is to bring the pandemic under control as soon as possible. In the Covid-19 process, comparisons have been made about the effects of the authoritarian regimes or democratic regimes of the states in the fight against the pandemic. It is controversial which regime approach is more successful in the fight against the pandemic. In addition to the authoritarian regime or democratic regime structures of the states, the differences in the management system, state capacities, attitudes of political leaders and similar differences that emerged in the fight against the pandemic were the factors that made it difficult to examine the distinction between authoritarian regimes and democratic regimes. China, where the pandemic was first seen and brought under control in a short time, is one of the leading examples indicating that authoritarian regimes are more successful in managing the pandemic. South Korea, on the other hand, is in the class of countries that are considered successful in the pandemic management of democratic regimes. The questions sought to be answered in this thesis research are whether democratic regimes or authoritarian regimes have been more successful in the fight against the pandemic and what position Turkey has taken in the policies to fight the pandemic. In order to carry out the research, the course of the pandemic in countries in different democracy classes was monitored. As a result of the evaluation, it has been concluded that success in the management of the pandemic process is related to the structuring of public institutions and organizations, the rapid decision-making structure of the government system, the capacity of the state and the degree of compliance of the people with the decisions of the state voluntarily, rather than that states are governed by democratic or authoritarian regimes.