The COVID-19 Pandemic and State Healthcare Capacity: Government Responses and Citizen Assessments in Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic raises concerns about the capability of governments to develop policies addressing its effects. This article evaluates citizens’ attitudes about their governments’ early responses to the crisis in three post-Soviet countries (Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine). We explore how the pandemic emerged, focusing on connections among state capacity, government policy interventions, and crisis mitigation. We also use data from the Perceptions and Attitudes on COVID-19 in Eurasia (PACE) survey to evaluate how individual-level attitudes and characteristics are associated with evaluations of government responsiveness. We find that trust in state institutions affects reported satisfaction with crisis responses.