How governance shaped military responses to the COVID-19 pandemic

Nick Dietrich (1) , Kristine Eck (2) , Chiara Ruffa (3)

1 Ohio Wesleyan University
2 Uppsala University
3 CERI - Centre de recherches internationales (Sciences Po, CNRS)

Most countries deployed their military in some capacity to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. We present original data on early pandemic-related deployments, identifying seven types of deployment: logistic operations, enforcement, international involvement, border protection, information provision, intelligence operations, and domestic protection. We find that military deployments are shaped by capacity and electoral considerations, even after accounting for cross-country differences in perceptions of the military. Countries with elected leaders were significantly more likely to deploy the military for border protection. Incumbents facing reelection were especially sensitive to electoral concerns, becoming significantly less likely to deploy the military for domestic enforcement when facing an imminent election.

Keywords: civil-military relations; military deployment; pandemic; Covid-19; governance

Domains: Humanities and Social Sciences; Political science

Nick Dietrich, Kristine Eck, Chiara Ruffa. How governance shaped military responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. European Political Science Review, 2023, 13 p. ⟨10.1017/S1755773923000024⟩. ⟨hal-04017924⟩