Hybrid Regimes’ Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: “The First Wave” Evidence from Ukraine and Georgia

Hybrid Regimes’ Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: “The First Wave” Evidence from Ukraine and Georgia

hybrid regimes

regime dynamics

COVID-19

crisis management

Ukraine

Georgia

Hybrid regimes have been largely overlooked in the scholarly discussion onthe effectiveness of halting the new COVID-19 virus, not least due to thelack of conceptual clarity, as such regimes are considered as the halfway or“grey area” on the authoritarianism-to-democracy path. Hence, the presentpaper aims to contribute to the pool of research on the internal dynamicsof hybridity through exploring the responses towards the pandemic by twostable post-Soviet hybrid regimes, namely Georgia and Ukraine. The “mostsimilar systems” comparative research design allows us to demonstratethat the two countries’ di!erent crisis management and communicationstrategies explain Georgia’s relative success in halting the virus spread incomparison to Ukraine throughout the first wave. The application of HenryHale’s “single-pyramid” and “competitive pyramid” models of patronalpolitics highlights the lack of competitiveness in the formal and informalgovernance processes in Georgia’s case, as opposed to the chaotic mode ofdecision-making as well as plurality of informal actors in Ukraine’s case.

Machitidze, Ivanna

Temirov, Yuriy

Czech Journal of International Relations; Vol. 55 No. 4 (2020); 72-93

2788-2993

2788-2985

10.32422/mv.55.4

Institute of International Relations Prague

2020-12-01

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0

application/pdf

eng

info:eu-repo/semantics/article

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

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