Political Economy of Lockdowns in Food Insecure Countries

Two "black swan" events, meaning events that are unexpected and change around our understanding of how the world works, occurred in early 2020: the fatal COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns that most countries in the world implemented which shut down parts of public life almost overnight. This was also the case in many countries with pre-existing levels of food and nutrition insecurity. Consequently, food and nutrition insecurity increased which was reported globally which can have long-term repercussions on human development. However, there is little and inconclusive understanding why lockdowns were implemented in these often unsuitable settings. Further, there is a lack of knowledge about the factors influencing the variation of lockdown stringencies between countries, especially whether less stringent lockdowns were implemented when the population was more economically vulnerable, and no information was available on whether the level of food and nutrition security was considered. Regarding the first question, we argue that the worldwide simultaneous implementation of lockdowns can only be understood in the light of the uniqueness of the situation as the characteristics of the crisis led to a "hyper-politization" of the measure lockdown. Consequently, many decisionmakers opted for a drastic reaction and adopted via policy diffusion the stringent lockdowns seen elsewhere, most prominently China. However, due to the differing economical contexts between developed and developing countries a measure was implemented that had the unintended consequence of increasing food and nutrition insecurity and poverty. To study the factors causing variations in lockdown stringency we conducted a regression analysis by assembling epidemiological, capability related, political and developmental variables from cross country data sets which resulted in a sample of 88 countries. Our results suggest that a lower case prevalence, upcoming elections and indeed lower food and nutrition security made countries implement less stringent lockdowns. The effect of the latter, however, was small, and the GDP had no effect at all. Also, the literature shows that measures to ensure FNS were existent but often not sufficient. While a higher level of democracy was not correlated with lockdown stringency, countries with upcoming elections in 2020 did implement less stringent lockdowns. However, there are a lot of political economy dynamics which complicate a constructive policy making process. This study contributes to our understanding of decision-making of countries with food insecure populations during crises by illuminating the complexity of how country specific factors as well as policy diffusion both play a role and are (not) weighed against each other with sometimes dire consequences for the food and nutrition security of the population. To achieve a greater centrality of FNS during crisis, these vulnerable groups need to be better involved and represented in policy making regarding decisions that concern their survival which would also allow greater adherence to lockdowns. The relevance of this research spans beyond the COVID-19 pandemic as future pandemics or other natural or manmade black swan events bear the risk of similarly triggering food security damaging policies.