The Political Repercussions of a Pandemic

Abstract

In this essay, data are recovered that account for the impact of the pandemic on the conditions of democracy in the world. The source of information is the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, which for this year incorporates, in addition to its monitoring of the situation of democracy in more than two hundred countries, a compilation of state responses to the pandemic and its impact on the validity of democratic standards. In this regard, it is observed that throughout the last decade there has been a decline in democracy, and although the effects of the pandemic are still limited, it is to be feared that in the long term its consequences will be worse than those perceived today. And given that there is an evident relationship between the autocratic character of the regimes and the propensity to violate democratic standards with exaggerated or non-consensual measures to combat the pandemic, is expected a deepening of the distance between countries where democracy prevails and those in which are autocratic forms of exercise of power.