Social participation in the Government response to COVID-19 in Thailand

Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), identified in late 2019, soon became one of the most severe global health crises, with impacts on every aspect of society, be it human, social, political or economic. Thailand was the first country outside China in which a positive COVID-19 case was confirmed, in early January 2020. To respond to the spread of COVID-19, the Thai Government implemented several executive measures, from the announcement of COVID-19 as a dangerous communicable disease to enforcement of a security-oriented state of emergency and introduction of a nationwide lockdown.

How governments responded to COVID-19 was a matter of policy and politics, which depended on many variables, from social policies to crisis management, political regimes, formal political institutions and state capacity. Interestingly, although governments faced the same problem, they responded differently. A study of the relation between the quality of governance and pandemic management in 185 countries found that governments with better governance were more effective in embracing and implementing suitably responsive policies and gained more public trust. Trust was an imperative element for shaping governance and effective policy-making in the COVID-19 crisis. Furthermore, a comparison of responses to COVID-19 suggests that the type of regime significantly influenced how a government responded to the crisis. It can thus be argued that the more authoritarian a government, the more centralized its policy response.