India’s covid-19 response has accelerated the country’s slide toward competitive authoritarian rule by centralizing decision making, undermining federalism, and providing new pretexts for stifling dissent.
By highlighting the deficiencies of authoritarian-populist president Jair Bolsonaro’s rule, the covid-19 pandemic is likely to leave Brazil’s democracy intact but even more brittle.
South Africa’s government sought to heed expert advice with its covid lockdown, yet shortcomings in state capacity fatally undermined both the virus response and efforts to address its devastating economic…
