The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many countries to reevaluate what normal everyday life might look like, affecting all aspects of life, including the political culture.
Political culture can be defined as, “the pattern of beliefs, attitudes, and values in a given society towards politics and the political system,” (McCormick, Hague, Harrop, 2019). COVID-19 has impacted every country in the world in some way and the government structure of a country has played a large role in how the pandemic has impacted the people. Has there been a change in political culture in the authoritarian regimes Russia, Cuba and Vietnam due to the government’s response to COVID-19?
As is a common theme amongst the authoritarian regimes Russia, Cuba, and Vietnam, the government’s portrayal of themselves is an influential factor in constituents’ attitudes towards it. Transparency plays a very important role in the political culture of authoritarian regimes because typically authoritarian regimes directly control sources of information as well as rules of law, therefore if what is occurring is not being portrayed accurately, public opinion becomes negative. COVID-19 responses in authoritarian regimes have had a direct impact on political culture in authoritarian regimes.
Russia
The Russian Federation has reported around 2.8 million total cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic, as well as approximately 50,000 total reported deaths. COVID-19 has had a significant impact on the people of the Russian Federation, given the change it provoked in Russian society, as well as the government’s response to the pandemic. According to an independent Russian analysis website, Riddle, the percentage of survey respondents whose lifestyle has been changed due to COVID-19 was seen at around 30% in June. Additionally, according to the same source, approximately 40% of Russian respondents’ income have dropped as a result of the pandemic and around 5% of respondents have lost their jobs entirely.
According to the World Bank, Russia has taken some preventative and reactionary measures to the pandemic, such as strengthening disease surveillance programs, conducting widespread testing, enhancing human resources and putting more healthcare workers to the frontlines. It seems as though even with such actions being taken, political culture has been affected negatively. According to Riddle, 50% of respondents in June thought that the government’s response to COVID-19 was excessive where 45% just didn’t trust the information on the pandemic in general.
Levada, an independent Russian analysis platform, has also conducted multiple surveys in regards to political culture and feelings towards Russian government. According to Levada, 30% of Russian respondents thought that the Russian government was “insufficient” when asked “How do you generally assess the measures taken by the president and the government to combat the coronavirus pandemic in Russia?”. 46% thought that the Russian government was doing “everything possible, everything necessary” when asked the same question. Additionally, according to Riddle, around 30% of respondents thought that the “Russian healthcare system was not ready to deal with the pandemic”.
For reference, it is important to note that approval rating and general attitude toward Russian government has never been so low. According to a Laveda survey referenced on aljazeera, approval ratings for Validimr Putin reached just “59% in June, down from the 69% in which was reported in February”. The point here is that political culture in Russia has typically always been relatively positive. Even with the Ukranian intervention and Crimea annexation, Putin’s approval rating was around 85%. Additionally, with propagandic government controlled media and general lack of support for opposing political parties, it is a very deviant case that this year’s attitudes are very negative towards the government. With that being said, political culture in Russia has definitely been affected due to the effects of the Coronavirus.
From an outside perspective, the actions Russia has taken to combat the Coronavirus, according to the World Bank, can be seen as precautionary and well thought out. However, according to Russian political culture in the last few months, it is not as efficient as it seems. Is Russia being effective in its practices when fighting COVID-19? According to the general attitude towards the Russian government and COVID-19 rates refusing to decrease, it does not appear so. Russia’s Coronavirus control efforts have been ineffective since their implementation and with COVID-19 cases now rising at rates Russia has not seen before, it is fair to assume that the negative political culture seen in June is just going to continue as a result.
It could also be said that the usual Russian government tactics of non transparent propagandic media is not as effective in such a universal problem that affects essentially all citizens of the world and not just Russia. People may have become more resistant and mindful that what Russia is saying versus what is actually occurring is not as consistent as the people may have once believed.
Cuba
Cuba has had a little over 10,000 cases total over the course of the year. Recently, the daily new cases have increased more each day and are larger than it was at the beginning of the pandemic. There have been 137 reported deaths from Coronavirus which is very low considering the population of Cuba is over 11 million people.
Political culture in Cuba is complex and difficult to learn about because the Cuban government is not very transparent with the public about anything. With that said, the Cuban people face a lot of discriminatory actions put onto them by the government if they speak out against the government and what it is doing. COVID-19 has exacerbated the silencing nature of the Cuban government. The government is using violations of the protocols put in place in order to stop the spread of the pandemic as justification for throwing government dissenters in jail or punishing them a lot. Because of these actions, it can be inferred that the Cuban people don’t have the best outlook on the government. Innocent people are being thrown in jail for not wearing a face covering in extreme ways. Also, the fines that are being imposed are more than double the average monthly income of a Cuban citizen.
Because of the harsh nature of the punishments people receive if they are suspected of violating any of the COVID-19 protocols, it would not be wrong to assume that the Cuban people don’t support the government fully. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to many people being wrongfully or arbitrarily imprisoned and people have had enough. There have been a number of protests regarding the treatment of people who are innocently thrown in jail because of their job. A lot of the people that are being targeted and imprisoned for violating COVID protocols are people who speak out against the government.
COVID-19 has changed the political culture of Cuba. The people have less trust in their government. This is because any recent efforts that have been made to give the people more opportunities to express themselves freely, although minor, have been stripped away. This is because any time a person has attempted to speak out against the government, they are thrown in jail, and coronavirus protocol violations are used as a justification for such action. The government has become less transparent with the public because they want to control every aspect of their lives and the government is using the pandemic as a justification for such control. As an outsider looking in, it is apparent that the people don’t view the government as well as the government portrays themselves to the world.
People have been more inclined to speak out against the government in recent years because of changes to the Cuban Constitution. In 2019 the government created a new constitution that gave the people more freedoms and rights. One of these freedoms was an increase in access to social media, although it is still very restricted. Because of these new rights, people have been given the opportunity to voice their opinions more freely then before. Even though this new constitution gave people more freedom, the government is still very restricting and nowhere near having freedom of speech like in the United States.In response to the passage of Decree 349 by president Miguel Diaz-Canel, which limited the public’s ability to protest unless they had explicit permission to do so, and the coronavirus’ impact on government control and the economy, a protest erupted that was risky for every participant. Approximately 300 people protested the government’s control over their ability to express themselves freely, something that has gotten worse since the beginning of the pandemic. This demonstrates how the Cuban People have lost some of their remaining faith and trust in the Cuban government.
Vietnam
Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Vietnam has only reported 1,414 cases and only 35 deaths. This can be considered somewhat of a success story compared to the sixteen million cases and almost 300,000 deaths reported by the United States alone. Unlike many countries, COVID-19 has had a positive impact on the political culture of Vietnam. This can be attributed to the extreme protective measures taken to decrease the spread of the virus, including extensive contact tracing and intense testing and containment measures since the first emergence of the virus in Vietnam in late January.
Effective citizen participation in these protective measures can be attributed to the fact that this is not the first time that Vietnam has seen a SARS epidemic, the first being in 2003. Since the initial appearance, Vietnam has increased its funding in health care and public health. A national emergency operations center was established in 2013 and four regional centers in 2014. The country has also shown effective pandemic management against measles, Ebola, MERS, and Zika in recent years. Vietnamese citizens have shown a great acceptance and compliance with the protective measures that the government has implemented. A collaboration of government funded programs and contributions from private companies has allowed for widespread testing. One aspect of testing that was different than most countries was that Vietnam began testing based on individuals that had come in contact with someone who was infected, not whether or not they showed symptoms. This allowed for earlier suppression of spreading the virus.
Phan LT, Nguyen TV, Luong QC, et al. Importation and human-to-human transmission of a novel coronavirus in Vietnam. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020;382(9):872‐874. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2001272. Accessed May 28, 2020.
The success of the Vietnamese government throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed positive effects on Vietnam’s political culture, showing a great increase in political trust.
The usually lower level of political trust in recent years stems from the government’s habit of [blame-avoidance] among typical political issues, usually pushing blame onto lower levels of government. This way, the CPV (or Communist Party of Vietnam) acts as though the situation was beyond their control and instead mishandled by lower levels of government. However, recent increase in government transparency has had noticeable positive effects on the political culture in Vietnam. There has been a rise in nationalism as various announcements and messages from the government to the people has shown an increased sense of community among Vietnamese citizens.
However, while COVID-19 has revealed an increased trust in the Vietnmese government from its people, it raises the question of whether or not this will call for increased transparency from the government in the future. There has not always been the greatest trust between the people of Vietnam and the government, as the government has not always been the most transparent with political issues in the past. Oftentimes, not all information is released to the public, sometimes none at all. However, since the government has seen an increase in political trust due to their increase in transparency, it would be wise of the Vietnamese government to take this as a lesson and increase their transparency on future political issues.
Conclusion
Political culture is impacted by the regime type of a country and transparency plays a huge role in public opinion of a government. In authoritarian regimes like Russia, Cuba and Vietnam, transparency is not something that is found very often and the coronavirus pandemic has changed the political culture of a country, sometimes for the better and other times for the worse. This pandemic has affected every aspect of a person’s life and their attitude towards the government is no exception. Government officials have varied greatly on the information that they provide to the public and that has altered the political culture in that country.
References
Augustin, Ed, and Frances Robles. “Cuba’s Economy Was Hurting. The Pandemic Brought a Food Crisis.,” September 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/world/americas/cuba-economy.html?searchResultPosition=10.
“COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Policy Response to Combating the Spread of the Epidemic in Russia.” World Bank, June 2, 2020. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/russia/brief/covid-19-response-health-russia.
“Cuba: Covid-19 Rules Used to Intensify Repression,” December 14, 2020. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/12/07/cuba-covid-19-rules-used-intensify-repression.
“Cuba: New Administration’s Decree 349 Is a Dystopian Prospect for Cuba’s Artists,” 2018. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/08/cuba-new-administrations-decree-349-is-a-dystopian-prospect-for-cubas-artists/.
“Cuba Population 2020 (Live),” 2020. https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/cuba-population.
“Cuba: WHO Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Dashboard.” Accessed December 22, 2020. https://covid19.who.int/region/amro/country/cu.
Dobrokhotov, Roman. “Putin’s Rating Is Collapsing as Anger Grows in Russia.” Vladimir Putin News | Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera, June 17, 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/6/17/putins-rating-is-collapsing-as-anger-grows-in-russia.
Margarita Zavadskaya, Boris Sokolov. “COVID-19 and Russians’ Political Sentiments.” RIDDLE Russia, November 10, 2020. https://www.ridl.io/en/covid-19-and-russians-political-sentiments/.
Nguyen, Viet Phuong. “The Domestic Politics of Vietnam’s Coronavirus Fight”. The Diplomat. April 24, 2020. https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/the-domestic-politics-of-vietnams-coronavirus-fight/
Pollock, Todd. Emerging COVID-19 success story: Vietnam’s commitment to containment. Our World in Data. June 30, 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/covid-exemplar-vietnam
Press, Associated. “Cuba’s New Constitution Could Reshape Government, Economy, Rights,” March 14, 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/cuba-s-new-constitution-could-reshape-government-economy-rights-n983136.
Roser, Max, Hannah Ritchie, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Joe Hasell. “Cuba: Coronavirus Pandemic Country Profile,” May 26, 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/cuba?country=~CUB.
“ Russia.” Worldometer. Accessed December 22, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/russia/.
Truong, Mai. “Vietnam’s COVID-19 Success Is a Double-Edged Sword for the Communist Party”. The Diplomat. August 6, 2020. https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/vietnams-covid-19-success-is-a-double-edged-sword-for-the-communist-party/
“Пандемия: Меры Властей и ‘Нерабочие Недели.’” Пандемия: меры властей и “нерабочие недели” –, April 30, 2020. https://www.levada.ru/2020/04/30/pandemiya-mery-i-nerabochie-nedeli/.
Contributors
Amy Lynch is a Political Science major with an expected graduation date of Spring 2023
Thomas Wainman is an International Relations major with an expected graduation date of Spring 2023
Julia Brandow is a Communications major with an expected graduation date of Spring 2023