Analyzing the Characteristics of Policies and Political Institutions for the Prevention and Control Governance of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from China

Abstract

This study explores the institutional reasons for and logical mechanism of the Chinese government’s rapid positive results and major strategic achievements in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic prevention and control. Based on the ROST Content Mining System version 6.0 (ROST) and VOSviewer V1.6.1 (VOSviewer), we conduct an econometric visualization analysis of COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control policies to explore which strengths of Chinese political institutions have been brought into play by the Chinese government and how to systematically analyze the approaches by which these strengths support effective public governance. The findings show that: (1) “institutional strength”, “medical terminology”, “policy content”, “policy implementation object”, “policy implementation requirement”, and “policy-making and implementation actor” are the six groups of high-frequency keywords in prevention and control policies. (2) The occurrences, links, and total link strength of the seven Chinese institutional strength keywords are very high. These results mean that the Chinese government has made full use of its institutional strengths to prevent and control COVID-19. These findings indicate that institutional strengths are critical to public health crisis prevention and control. They also illustrate that institutional strength is the prerequisite and key factor for achieving effective governance in the policy process. Scientific policymaking, efficient policy implementation, and strict oversight are undeniably necessary for effective governance during public health crises.