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ransacked a building they believed would be used to house potentially ill SarS
patients (eckholm 2003).
the need for a capable state to respond effectively to the spread of disease and
the social problems that flow from it occurs at a time when the capacity of the state
is reduced by the pandemic. added to the likely labour shortages among government
employees, staff fatigue and loss of institutional memory are associated with high
staff turnover. by debilitating law enforcement agencies and by decimating the
ranks of skilled administrators, the pandemic will not only cause policy consistency
and enforcement problems, but will also diminish the reach or responsiveness of
government institutions, or reduce their resilience. In addition, the pandemic could
compromise the state capacity to respond adequately to the pandemic by affecting
elite or election politics. History is full of examples of the political instability
triggered by disease-caused deaths among reigning families (Mcneill 1976, 260). In
China during the SARS crisis, conflicts over how to respond to the disease outbreak
exacerbated factionalist politics and contributed to initial policy immobility (Huang
2004). the reduced ability of the government to respond can only foster public
discontent with the government and create greater pressures on government structures
(Chemical and Biological Arms Control Institute [CBACI] and Center for Strategic
and International Studies [CSIS] 2000). As the pandemic may increasingly highlight
a government's incapacity in crisis management and in providing adequate public
and health services, the government would face legitimacy problems—meaning
its ability to have its rule accepted by the populace and political opposition will
be eroded. this negative synergy between state and society would make it even
more difficult to break the downward spiral of disease, social instability, and weak
government structures. as suggested by china's experience with SarS, confused
and shocked people may turn to non-state sources of moral authority and spiritual
political opposition that resorts to violence in an attempt to topple the government
(cbacI and cSIS 2000, 11).
will the pandemic lead to social breakdown? In examining the impact of the
Spanish influenza on the U.S. society, John barry (2004, 350) suggested that society
began to break apart because 'a fear and panic of the influenza akin to the terror of
the Middle ages regarding the Black Plague, [was] prevalent in many parts of the
country'. noting that doctors and nurses were kidnapped and victims were starving
to death 'not from lack of food but because the well [were] afraid to help the sick',
Barry (2005) suggests that if the pandemic had continued to build, 'civilization could
easily disappear from the face of the earth within a few more weeks'. However, even
during the pandemic, the psychological and sociopolitical impacts of a pandemic on
individuals and societies can be very mixed. Psychologically, fear and panic over
a disease outbreak often coexist with passion for the sick and poor; socially, mass
hysteria and social discrimination of infected persons are often juxtaposed with
social cohesion and collective problem solving (chan 2003). In contrast to barry's
pessimism, alfred crosby (2003, 115) observed a picture in which the pandemic
actually increased social cohesion in the United States: despite the deep schism in
