Political regimes and vaccine procurement policies during the Covid-19 pandemic
Date
2022
Authors
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
The objective of this analysis, is to understand where from did countries with different democracy levels procure vaccines, what countries took part in vaccine diplomacy and vaccine nationalism and what countries with different democracy levels have interacted with each other regards to vaccine procurement. The analysis was conducted categorizing nine countries – Estonia, Canada, Japan, Hungary, Brazil, Indonesia, China, Cuba and Russia, based on their democracy level, subsequently finding how these countries’ governments procured vaccines or exported them and finally analysing the findings.
Estonia, Canada and Japan in the Democratic group category, procured vaccines exclusively from private pharmaceutical companies, because these private companies were transparent in their clinical trials on the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. Countries in this group would not procure vaccines from foreign state-owned enterprises, because that would indicate support for that government.
Hungary, Brazil and Indonesia in the Flawed Democracy group, were most likely to procure vaccines from private pharmaceutical companies and from foreign state-owned enterprises. This is due to lower standards on transparency during clinical trials and on the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. Flawed Democracy group is the receiver part of vaccine diplomacy.
China, Cuba and Russia in the Nondemocratic group, were most likely to develop, approve and manufacture vaccines exclusively from their respective state-owned or local enterprises, due to protectionism. China and Russia valued more exporting vaccines, than vaccinating their populations, while Cuba determined on vaccinating their public.