Epetia, Ma. Christina F.Basbas, Alyanna Marie G.Morales, Lilian Felina I.2024-07-302024-07-302021https://selib.upd.edu.ph/etdir/handle/123456789/172To control the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, governments around the world have implemented three broad classes of country-level control measures: containment and closure measures, economic measures, and health system approaches. The cumulation of the aforementioned policy decisions determines the stringency of a country’s COVID-19 response. This paper aims to ascertain the political determinants of response stringency. We conduct ordinary least squares (OLS) and Logistic (logit) regressions to illustrate the association between a country’s rule of law performance, level of democracy, and the stringency of its COVID-19 response. Our findings suggest that COVID-19 response stringency decreases with the adherence to the rule of law and increases with the level of democracy. Hence, this study presents implications for the role of institutional trust and the culture of individualism in policy decisions amidst public health crises.enThesis