Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research

Center for Asian Public Opinion Research & Collaboration Initiative (충남대학교 아시아여론조사학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

Democratic Values, Collective Security, and Privacy: Taiwan People's Response to COVID-19

  • Received : 2020.06.30
  • Accepted : 2020.07.15
  • Published : 2020.08.31
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

In the pandemic crisis, many governments implemented harsh interventions that might contradict democratic values and civil liberties. In Taiwan, the debate over whether or not to reveal personal information of infected persons to limit the coronavirus's spread poses the democratic dilemma between public health and civil liberties. This study examines whether and explains how Taiwan's people respond to the choice between individual privacy and collective security. We used survey data gathered in May 2020 to show that, first, the democratic values did not deter the pursuit of collective safety at the cost of civil liberty; rather, people with higher social trust were more likely to give up their civil liberties in exchange for public safety. Second, people who support democratic values and pursue collective security tend to avoid violating privacy by opposing the release of personal information. This study proves that democratic values do not necessarily threaten collective safety and that the pursuit of common good can co-exist with personal privacy.

Keywords

References

  1. AEIdeas. (2020, May 22). A tale of two contact-tracing apps: Lessons from Australia and New Zealand. https://www.aei.org/technology-and-innovation/a-tale-oftwo-contact-tracing-apps-lessons-from-australia-and-new-zealand/
  2. Amat, F., Arenas, A., Falco-Gimeno, A., & Munoz, J. (2020). Pandemics meet democracy: Experimental evidence from the COVID-19 crisis in Spain [Preprint]. SocArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/dkusw
  3. Baldwin, P. (2005). Disease and democracy the industrialized world faces AIDS. University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520243507.001.0001
  4. Besley, T., & Kudamatsu, M. (2006). Health and democracy. American Economic Review, 96(2), 313-318. https://doi.org/10.1257/000282806777212053
  5. Blair, R. A., Morse, B. S., & Tsai, L. L. (2017). Public health and public trust: Survey evidence from the Ebola Virus Disease epidemic in Liberia. Social Science & Medicine, 172, 89-97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.11.016
  6. Bol, D., Giani, M., Blais, A., & Loewen, P. J. (2020). The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy? European Journal of Political Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12401
  7. Bollyky, T. J., Templin, T., Cohen, M., Schoder, D., Dieleman, J. L., & Wigley, S. (2019). The relationships between democratic experience, adult health, and causespecific mortality in 170 countries between 1980 and 2016: An observational analysis. The Lancet, 393(10181), 1628-1640. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)30235-1
  8. Brzechczyn, K. (2020). The Coronavirus in liberal and illiberal democracies and the future of globalized world. Society Register, 4(2), 83-94. https://doi.org/10.14746/sr.2020.4.2.06
  9. Chiou, C. (2020, April 6). How Taiwan battles the Coronavirus. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2020/04/how-taiwan-battles-the-coronavirus/
  10. Cohen, I. G., Gostin, L. O., & Weitzner, D. J. (2020). Digital smartphone tracking for COVID-19: Public health and civil liberties in tension. JAMA, 323(23), 2371-2372. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.8570
  11. Cornelson, K., & Miloucheva, B. (2020). Political polarization, social fragmentation, and cooperation during a pandemic (Working Paper No. 663). Department of Economics. University of Toronto. https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/public/workingPapers/tecipa-663.pdf
  12. Cronert, A. (2020). Democracy, state capacity, and COVID-19 related school closures [Preprint]. Politics and International Relations. https://doi.org/10.33774/apsa-2020-jf671-v4
  13. Davis, D. W. & Silver, B. D. (2004). Civil liberties vs. security: Public opinion in the context of the terrorist attacks on America. American Journal of Political Science. 48(1), 28-46. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00054.x
  14. The Economist. (2020, May 9). Covid-19 has given most world leaders a temporary rise in popularity. The Economist. https://www.economist.com/graphicdetail/2020/05/09/covid-19-has-given-most-world-leaders-a-temporary-risein-popularity
  15. Fairchild, A. L., Bayer, R., & Colgrove, J. (2008). Privacy, democracy and the politics of disease surveillance. Public Health Ethics, 1(1), 30-38. https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phn008
  16. Foldes, AA. (2020). Right to information: A matter of life and death during the COVID-19 crisis. Transparency International. https://www.transparency.org/en/blog/right-to-information-a-matter-of-lifeand-death-during-the-covid-19-crisis#
  17. Frey, C. B., Chen, C., & Presidente, G. (2020). Democracy, culture, and contagion: Political regimes and countries responsiveness to Covid-19. Covid Economics, 18, 222-238.
  18. Fukuyama, F. (2020a, March 30). The thing that determines a country's resistance to the Coronavirus. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/thing-determines-howwell-countries-respond-coronavirus/609025/
  19. Fukuyama, F. (2020b, June 15). The Pandemic and political order. Foreign Affairs, (July/August). https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2020-06-09/pandemic-and-political-order
  20. Gadarian, S. K., Goodman, S. W., & Pepinsky, T. B. (2020). Partisanship, health behavior, and policy attitudes in the early stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic [Preprint]. https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3562796
  21. Goldenfein, J., Green, B., & Viljoen, S. (2020, April). Privacy versus health is a false trade-off. Jocbin. https://jacobinmag.com/2020/4/privacy-health-surveillancecoronavirus-pandemic-technology
  22. Grossman, G., Kim, S., Rexer, J., & Thirumurthy, H. (2020). Political partisanship influences behavioral responses to governors' recommendations for COVID-19 prevention in the United States [Preprint]. https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=3578695
  23. Harell, A. (2020, April 8). How Canada's pandemic response is shifting political views. Policy Options. https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/april-2020/howcanadas-pandemic-response-is-shifting-political-views/
  24. Hetherington, M. J. (1998). The political relevance of political trust. American Political Science Review, 92(4), 791-808. https://doi.org/10.2307/2586304
  25. Hetherington, M., & Weiler, J. (2009). Authoritarianism in contemporary American politics. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  26. Hetherington, M., & Suhay, E. (2011). Authoritarianism, threat, and Americans' support for the War on Terror. American Journal of Political Science, 55(3), 546-560. www.jstor.org/stable/23024936 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00514.x
  27. Lanier, J., & Weyl, E. G. (2020, April 10). How civic technology can help stop a Pandemic: Taiwan's initial success is a model for the rest of the world. Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2020-03-20/how-civictechnology-can-help-stop-pandemic
  28. Levi, M., & Stoker, L. (2000). Political trust and trustworthiness. Annual Review of Political Science, 3, 475-507. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.3.1.475
  29. Lin, C.-F., Wu, C.-H., & Wu, C.-F. (2020). Reimagining the administrative state in times of global health crisis: An anatomy of Taiwan's regulatory actions in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. European Journal of Risk Regulation, 11(Special Issue 2), 256-272. https://doi.org/10.1017/err.2020.25
  30. Liu, C.-H., & Bos, J. (2020, May 19). Could the "liberal" Dutch have learned from Taiwan's approach to coronavirus? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/19/liberal-dutchtaiwan-coronavirus-covid-19-netherlands
  31. Manantan, M. (2020, May 22). Agile governance crushing COVID-19: Taiwan and South Korea. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2020/05/agilegovernance-crushing-covid-19-taiwan-and-south-korea/
  32. Merkley, E., Bridgman, A., Loewen, P. J., Owen, T., Ruths, D., & Zhilin, O. (2020). A rare moment of cross-partisan consensus: Elite and public response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008423920000311
  33. Newton, K. (2001). Trust, social capital, civil society, and democracy. International Political Science Review/Revue Internationale De Science Politique, 22(2), 201-214. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192512101222004
  34. Schmidt, F. (2020, June 15). German COVID-19 warning app wins on user privacy. The DW. https://www.dw.com/en/german-covid-19-warning-app-wins-on-userprivacy/a-53808888
  35. Sullivan, J. L. & Hendriks, H. (2009). Public support for civil liberties pre- and post- 9/11. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 5, 375-391, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.lawsocsci.093008.131525
  36. Taiwan News. (2020, March 13). Taiwan made stronger by WHO exclusion: Radio France Internationale (RFI). Taiwan News. https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3896337
  37. Vinck, P., Pham, P. N., Bindu, K. K., Bedford, J., & Nilles, E. J. (2019). Institutional trust and misinformation in the response to the 2018-19 Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, DR Congo: A population-based survey. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 19(5), 529-536. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(19)30063-5
  38. Yang, W. (2020, April 9). How has Taiwan kept its coronavirus infection rate so low? DW. https://www.dw.com/en/taiwan-coronavirus/a-52724523
  39. Yip, H. (2020, March 16). Fear of China made Taiwan a coronavirus success story. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/16/taiwan-china-fearcoronavirus-success/
  40. Zastrow, M. (2020). South Korea is reporting intimate details of COVID-19 cases: Has it helped? Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-00740-y