The question of the functioning of the state has become more acute after the COVID-19 pandemic. You wrote quite early after the outbreak an article called “The Thing That Determines a Country’s Resistance to the Coronavirus.” What determines it? The best-performing states in this crisis are those that have, first, good state capacity, meaning the public health infrastructure, people, and facilities to deal with mass sickness, and, second, widespread trust in the country’s leadership. That trust is built partly on state capacity but also on the citizens’ sense that the leadership is honest and
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