Militarization of COVID-19 Responses and Autocratization: A Comparative Study of Eight Countries in Asia-Pacific and Latin America

This paper examines the relationship between the militarization of COVID-19 state responses and autocratization in eight Asia-Pacific and Latin American countries. Utilizing a conceptual framework focusing on COVID-19-related military missions and operations, we present two key findings. First, our research demonstrates significant variation in the specific profile of military engagement in governments COVID-19 responses; however, overall, all governments deployed their military, particularly in health service provision, logistics, and the production of COVID-19 goods. Meanwhile, soldiers were generally less involved in health bureaucracy and public security. Second, based on two rounds of an expert survey, we find that military deployments had a negative impact on democratic standards only in places where soldiers routinely conducted public security operations autonomously, without effective civilian oversight. Our study concludes that the pandemic did not induce autocratization or a collapse of civil-military relations. However, it did accentuate pre-existing conditions and issues in the democratic governance of the security sector. This acceleration effect was observable in democracies and autocracies experiencing autocratization prior to the pandemic.