Argument and Contribution

At the national level, the United States struggled to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic: federal policy was delayed and inconsistent, supply shortages were widespread, and political pressure undermined accurate public health guidance. At the state and local levels, however, there was a great deal of variation in terms of the capacity to respond to COVID. While indicators of state capacity often focus on “formal” indicators like institutional resources, staffing, and finances, translating formal capacities into effectively implemented policies is neither a simple nor an automatic process. 

In “Building the Plane While Flying,” Didi Kuo and Andrew S. Kelly draw our attention to the importance of informal indicators of public health capacity. These include strong relationships within and across government agencies, the embeddedness of health officers in local communities, and prior experience with responding to disasters, among other factors. The authors argue that local governments with strong informal capacity were better able to communicate with and learn from one another, as well as to gain the trust of community members, during the pandemic. Conversely, localities with otherwise strong formal capacities often failed to respond to the challenges at hand. This is because they were unable to effectively leverage their relationships and organizational networks.
 

Kuo and Kelly’s paper is informed by qualitative analysis of California’s public health institutions as well as in-depth interviews with health officers across seventeen Northern, Central, and Southern California counties. The interviews illuminate the concrete processes by which local governments responded (or struggled to respond) to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the paper’s key contributions is to push us to conceptualize state capacity more broadly and to focus on the factors that drive not just policy development, but policy implementation. 

The Importance of Informal Capacity

The bulk of the paper disaggregates informal capacity into its various mechanisms and processes. Each of these proves to be crucial in explaining different pandemic outcomes at the local level. One such mechanism is coordination within local governments. To illustrate this, consider public health officers, who enjoy broad legal powers to protect public health as well as financial resources and personnel at their disposal. By law, officers possess significant capacities to mitigate health crises. Yet across the interviews, health officers reported that effectively implementing COVID-19 policy required their cooperation and communication with a host of actors, including the County Counsel (the county’s top lawyer), Chief Administrative Officer, and Board of Supervisors, which is charged with appointing health officers.
 

Closely related to intra-governmental coordination is the importance of autonomy, particularly in the face of political pressure. For example, boards of supervisors sometimes undermined the public guidance provided by health officers. (This guidance could range from the need to close schools to officers simply communicating truthfully with localities about COVID-19 risks.) Overcoming efforts by board members to ignore or muzzle officers required coordination between those actors who were more insulated from political pressure.

Another key component of informal capacity was prior experience responding to emergencies and California’s myriad of natural disasters, such as fires, floods, or mudslides. Health officers from more experienced counties noted their ability to draw upon established emergency procedures and partnerships. For example, some counties had previously cooperated with each other, as well as with independent agencies like the Red Cross, to provide aid and shelter to those affected by wildfires. These experiences — for which no amount of financial resources or personnel can substitute — served as templates to help coordinate COVID-19 policy responses.

Informal capacity also depended upon health departments effectively communicating with the public. Many departments initially lacked the infrastructure to do this, and therefore relied on cooperation with other actors like school superintendents, sheriffs, and community leaders. Some counties created toolkits to improve their community’s understanding of personal protective equipment (PPE) or even produced local TV shows. Still others scheduled conference calls with local hospitals, faith leaders, and nursing homes. Given that many of these communication efforts were improvised, public health officers stressed the importance of formalizing coordination between state and nonstate actors so as to improve emergency preparedness in the future.
 

In addition to coordination within local governments, effective policy-making and communication required coordination across governments. One such institution was the Association of Bay Area Health Officers (ABAHO), founded in the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. ABAHO members had also coordinated policy responses to the H1N1 outbreak. These cross-county partnerships enabled early, rapid, and unified responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. By contrast, the authors find that regions without such networks faced greater challenges in developing and implementing public policy.

A final aspect of informal capacity is the social embeddedness of health officials in their communities. This includes partnerships with leaders of businesses and faith groups, teachers, and restaurant owners. Not only did these partnerships increase the scope of outreach, but they also often established relationships that had not existed beforehand. Gaining a foothold in local communities thus increased the likelihood that community members would support policies and enabled local governments to access hard-to-reach populations.
 

Kuo and Kelly’s analysis of informal capacity should give us pause when considering existing indices of public health preparedness; some of these have ranked the United States quite high despite its often ineffective responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. That this mismatch occurs is arguably a function of observers prioritizing formal capacities. For federal, decentralized countries like the US, informal capacities and relationships are essential not only for delivering services but for generating legitimacy and trust among those receiving services.

*Research-in-Brief prepared by Adam Fefer.

Motivation & Contribution

Over the past 10-15 years, both longstanding and relatively new democracies have suffered from backsliding and erosion, including India, the United States, Brazil, Turkey, and many others. Many social scientists have explained this wave of backsliding in terms of either (a) elected autocrats who undermine democracy from within or (b) declining popular support for democrats who have failed to deliver economic growth and prosperity. However, recent scholarship by Thomas Carothers and Brendan Hartnett has questioned the wisdom of the latter. For example, India enjoyed strong economic growth prior to its backsliding under Narendra Modi.

In “Delivering for Democracy,” Francis Fukuyama, Chris Dann, and Beatriz Magaloni set out to more systematically evaluate the evidence connecting popular support for democracy with delivery, examining both backsliding and non-backsliding countries. After finding preliminary evidence for the democracy-delivery relationship, they offer an explanation of why delivery is simultaneously so important and so elusive under democratic governance.

Evidence

Using ten data sources covering 650,000 people in both old and new democracies, the authors find a strong, positive correlation between satisfaction with democracy and economic performance. This relationship holds not only for many countries at one point in time but for pairs of countries over time. In two developing democracies — Argentina and Brazil — as well as in two developed democracies — Greece and Spain — satisfaction and delivery have been closely connected since 2005, plummeting during economic crises and rising during periods of prosperity. These patterns call for an explanation for why voters care so much about delivery, such that they may be willing to sacrifice their democratic freedoms for it.
 

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The Argument

Delivery is Important

The authors begin from the axiom that stable political life depends upon citizens perceiving their governments as legitimate. Legitimacy can be thought of in terms of both performance — the effective delivery of goods and services — and procedure, which encompasses policies that reflect the democratic will of the people. As the examples of China, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore show, however, plenty of autocracies and backsliding democracies have not only delivered, but have also arguably outperformed their democratic peers. From China’s Belt and Road Initiative to Turkey’s Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, authoritarian leaders and ruling parties have achieved remarkable performance legitimacy. 

Although autocracies, by definition, cannot be procedurally legitimate, this may carry little weight for democratic citizens who experience prolonged unemployment or must deal with dilapidated infrastructure. Indeed, public engagement through procedural channels — such as voting or jury service — has steadily declined across the democratic world. Democratic voters are increasingly willing to support outsider candidates who build new infrastructure or promise to fight crime, but who nonetheless restrict their political freedoms. Many citizens of El Salvador — which now claims the world’s highest incarceration rate — continue to view Nayib Bukele’s administration as the surest way of delivering security, despite a years-long state of emergency that has seriously eroded democratic freedoms. 

Meanwhile, established democracies built much of their infrastructure decades ago, so investments primarily maintain these systems, rather than showcasing new projects that can garner public support. In some cases, democracies have struggled to even maintain their existing infrastructure, perhaps best exemplified by the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. All of this creates the conditions for voters to support far-right, anti-democratic parties, which often blame immigrants for economic problems and propose illiberal solutions.

Yet Democratic Delivery is Difficult

Elected democrats seeking to deliver may find themselves hamstrung in ways that autocrats are not. For one, democratic institutions are composed of ‘veto players’ who can stymie the introduction of badly needed policies: national and subnational governments, multiple legislative chambers, judges who review and overturn executive action, and so on. At the same time, democrats must worry about election cycles and term limits, decreasing their incentives to deliver for the long term when later politicians may take credit. Meanwhile, legal and regulatory systems, such as those intended to protect the environment, may prevent the building of critical infrastructure. Property rights prevent the forcible displacement of communities for development, while civil liberties prevent the repression of those who refuse to be displaced. Rules meant to prevent regulatory capture often become arenas where powerful interest groups block and delay government action. 

Independent news media present another potential impediment to delivery, as criticism from journalists can make incumbents wary of undertaking new projects. In addition, media bias can convince voters to remove politicians who do, in fact, deliver. By contrast, autocrats who censor media and arrest journalists can focus on delivery alone, even while their development schemes often rest on corrupt and nepotistic practices. Popular discontent with democratic government ultimately creates a damaging feedback loop: voters are unwilling to fund government projects, in turn leading government to function worse, generating further discontent.
 

Prospects

Autocrats have figured out ways to deliver the goods and services their citizens want, but this does not make autocracy a just political system. By the same token, democracies may struggle to deliver, but their procedural legitimacy — especially voters’ ability to hold representatives to account — entails a powerful means of generating fair and inclusive delivery. As such, the authors call on democracies to examine their past and that of their peer countries — both developed and developing — for inspiration. For example, the U.S. New Deal was exemplary in building ambitious and popular infrastructure, as well as providing broad social and economic protections. (Of course, most of these projects would be hamstrung by modern-day regulatory frameworks.)

Meanwhile, Australia’s citizens have both benefited from a recent infrastructure boom and have demonstrated strong support for democracy. Finally, many Latin American countries have implemented popular and effective programs like conditional cash transfers. For the authors, addressing the issues most pressing to voters — such as job creation, which is especially salient to young people, who are most dissatisfied with democracy — will require democratic governments to strike the right balance between democracy and delivery.

*Research-in-Brief prepared by Adam Fefer.

Polina Aldoshyna is a Ukrainian lawyer and civic leader with over nine years of experience in law, public administration, and nonprofit management. She currently leads the BGV Charity Fund, overseeing social projects that support vulnerable communities. In addition, she serves as a Deputy of the Zhytomyr Regional Council, focusing on local governance and social policy. Throughout her career, Polina has managed over 60 humanitarian projects, including the establishment of psychosocial support centers and aid programs for displaced individuals and veterans.

Project: Institutionalizing Resilience Centers for Postwar Recovery 

Polina is currently working on transforming Ukraine’s emerging resilience centers—grassroots hubs that provide psychosocial support, legal aid, and essential services to displaced and vulnerable populations—into a sustainable, institutionalized model of community-based social infrastructure. While these centers have played a critical role in the war’s social response, many still lack unified standards, stable funding, and digital infrastructure, limiting their long-term impact.

Her project explores which governance structures — municipal, civic, or hybrid — are most viable in Ukraine’s decentralized context, how public, private, and donor financing can be blended to support long-term operations, and how digital tools, such as CRM systems and reporting platforms, can professionalize service delivery. Drawing on global models, such as Resilience Hubs in the United States, Polina aims to co-design a scalable framework for resilience centers that can be integrated into Ukraine’s broader post-war recovery strategy.

To support this work, Polina is interested in meeting with NGOs, charitable foundations, and private philanthropists who support Ukraine in the reconstruction of human social capital in the United States. She hopes to learn how democratic institutions adapt and deliver services during crisis and post-conflict transitions, as well as engage with scholars and practitioners working at the intersection of governance, social development, and recovery.
 

Oleksii Movchan is a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Economic Development, representing the “Servant of the People” faction. He chairs the subcommittee on public procurements and state property management, and is active in inter-parliamentary groups with the USA, UK, Japan, and others. Before parliament, he led projects at Prozorro.Sale. Oleksii holds degrees from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Ukrainian Catholic University, and Kyiv School of Economics. He has advanced key reforms in procurements, state-owned companies, and privatization to support Ukraine’s European Union integration.

Project: Improving Corporate Governance in Municipally-Owned Enterprises (MoEs) in Ukraine

Oleksii is currently working to improve the governance of Ukraine’s municipally owned enterprises (MoEs), which number nearly 14,000—more than triple the number of state-owned enterprises. While some MoEs serve as critical infrastructure providers in areas such as water, heating, and public transport, most operate without modern governance standards. Over 82% are unprofitable and many are subsidized, making them susceptible to inefficiency, mismanagement, and corruption. These shortcomings erode public trust, distort competition, and weaken essential service delivery.

His project focuses on designing and advocating for national legislation to institutionalize OECD-based governance practices across approximately 60 high-impact MoEs in 19 cities. Proposed measures include strategic property management policies, independent supervisory boards, transparent CEO selection, and robust audit, compliance, and risk management systems. The legislation also calls for standardized financial reporting and regular external audits to enhance transparency and creditworthiness.

To support this work, Oleksii is drawing on Ukraine’s pilot reforms in Mykolaiv and Lviv, as well as prior SOE governance reforms since 2015, and global best practices from EU and OECD countries. He is particularly interested in how institutional reform can advance anti-corruption goals and how reformers in other countries have successfully designed and implemented large-scale changes. He hopes to meet with Stanford faculty, civic technologists, and philanthropic organizations, such as the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, Code for America, and the Skoll Foundation, to explore how policy and technology innovations can support municipal reform and Ukraine’s post-war recovery.
 

Maria Golub is a recognized expert on Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration, with deep expertise in EU-Ukraine bilateral relations. Based in Brussels, she currently serves as a Senior Political and Policy Advisor to Ukrainian leadership, where she advocates for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and supports the country’s advancement along the EU integration path through a decisive reform agenda. She is also actively involved in shaping Ukraine’s reconstruction strategy and is a strong proponent of the “build back better” principle, championing an ambitious revival plan for the country.

Project: Building a National Recovery Platform and Transatlantic Innovation Alliance

Maria is currently working to establish a national Coalition for Recovery—an inclusive, cross-sectoral platform designed to unify Ukraine’s defense, reconstruction, and reform agendas. As Ukraine faces the twin imperatives of resisting ongoing military aggression and laying the groundwork for long-term renewal, Maria’s project aims to ensure that recovery planning is not siloed but instead integrates priorities across security, governance, innovation, and transatlantic cooperation.

The Coalition will convene key domestic and international stakeholders to shape Ukraine’s internal reform agenda, embed EU and NATO-aligned governance standards, and streamline policy frameworks across recovery sectors. A core pillar of the project is embedding security priorities and military technological innovation directly into the recovery strategy, positioning defense modernization as a foundation — not a separate track — for rebuilding state capacity and competitiveness. In tandem, Maria is developing the concept for a large-scale technology and defense innovation alliance between Ukraine, the EU, and the United States. By fostering deeper collaboration in emerging technologies and military-industrial partnerships, the initiative seeks to contribute to Ukraine’s economic resurgence in 2025–2026 and anchor its strategic integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.

Maria is particularly interested in successful strategies and action plans that demonstrate how countries emerging from large-scale conflict can simultaneously pursue national recovery and build resilient, future-oriented security and defense architectures. She aims to explore cutting-edge developments in the tech and military tech sectors, as well as innovative tools like digital twin cities, to help design an integrated national revival plan. In addition, she hopes to deepen her understanding of how AI tools and techniques can support planning, coordination, and implementation across Ukraine’s postwar recovery landscape.
 

Alyona Nevmerzhytska is CEO of hromadske.ua, Ukraine’s leading independent online media platform. She began her career in 2012 at the Kyiv Post and has since focused on business development and organizational strategy. At hromadske, she has enhanced audience engagement and strengthened data-driven decision-making. Committed to building sustainable models for independent media, she ensures ethical newsroom operations and promotes democratic values. She is a graduate of the Stockholm School of Economics, an Atlantic Council Millennium Fellow, and a 2024 McCain Institute Global Leader.

Project: Strengthening Independent Media for Postwar Accountability and Recovery

Alyona is currently working to build a more resilient and innovative media ecosystem in Ukraine that can serve as both a watchdog and a unifying force during the country’s postwar recovery. As CEO of Hromadske.ua, she is leading efforts to combine investigative journalism, compelling storytelling, and technological advancement with a focus on financial sustainability and editorial independence.

Her project explores how independent media can most effectively cover Ukraine’s complex reconstruction process — holding public institutions and international aid mechanisms accountable while also building trust across communities fractured by war. Alyona is particularly interested in leveraging technology, including AI tools, to enhance investigative capacity, analyze data, and uncover patterns of corruption or inefficiency in recovery efforts.

Through the SU-DD fellowship, she also seeks to explore global models for sustainable journalism beyond donor-driven funding, learning how to strengthen independent media institutions to ensure their long-term viability and public impact. A key area of inquiry is the ethical integration of AI into journalism, ensuring that innovation does not compromise transparency, integrity, or audience trust. Alyona is eager to connect with Stanford faculty in communication and business, as well as experts, to explore sustainable models for independent journalism and civil society resilience. She is also interested in meeting with philanthropic organizations, alongside tech leaders, and Ukrainian NGOs to strengthen partnerships that support innovative, mission-driven media.