A Democratic tour de force: How the Korean State Successfully Limited the Spread of COVID-19
While the COVID-19 pandemic is still greatly affecting most of the world, the Republic of Korea has managed to stall the spread of the disease.
No nationwide or even local lockdown was imposed; citizens largely complied with government guidance on social distancing and there have been no COVID-related protests in the country. The response of the Korean government and of Korean society to the COVID-19 crisis has generated much interest among foreign observers, who wonder how the Korean government was able to limit the spread of the disease while maintaining economic activity and without generating distrust among the population.
The paper argues that a multiplicity of factors have enabled the Korean government to limit the spread of the disease without antagonizing the population but most importantly that it was Korea’s democratic control of technology that was effective in curbing the contagion curve, rather than technology per se. The Korean government has used information technologies and surveillance mechanisms to track COVID-19 cases through applications and tracing maps. But a transparent and legally limited use of surveillance technologies has proven decisive in the management of the pandemic.
However, several challenges still await Korea after COVID-19, even while it now exports its COVID response as a ‘K model’. These include the current second wave and imported cases, as well as domestic debates surrounding the government’s Keynesian response to the economic repercussions of the pandemic.
This page contains only a summary of our work. If you would like to have access to all the information from our research on the subject, you can download the full version in PDF format.
A Democratic tour de force: How the Korean State Successfully Limited the Spread of COVID-19
Center for Asian Studies
Asia is a nerve center for multiple global economic, political and security challenges. The Center for Asian Studies provides documented expertise and a platform for discussion on Asian issues to accompany decision makers and explain and contextualize developments in the region for the sake of a larger public dialogue.
The Center's research is organized along two major axes: relations between Asia's major powers and the rest of the world; and internal economic and social dynamics of Asian countries. The Center's research focuses primarily on China, Japan, India, Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific, but also covers Southeast Asia, the Korean peninsula and the Pacific Islands.
The Centre for Asian Studies maintains close institutional links with counterpart research institutes in Europe and Asia, and its researchers regularly carry out fieldwork in the region.
The Center organizes closed-door roundtables, expert-level seminars and a number of public events, including an Annual Conference, that welcome experts from Asia, Europe and the United States. The work of Center’s researchers, as well as that of their partners, is regularly published in the Center’s electronic journal Asie.Visions.
China’s Climate Leadership after Hormuz: How Should Europe Adjust?
The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz in early 2026 offered an unplanned stress test of China’s approach to energy security, and China passed it far better than most expected. The episode demonstrated that the underlying risk of supply disruption is real, while validating a preference for resilience and resource security that has long underpinned Chinese energy and climate policy and has now been reinforced under the banner of building an “energy powerhouse.”
China as an ambivalent supporter of the WTO and the multilateral trading system
Amid rising trade tensions between Europe and China and broader uncertainty in the international rules-based trade regime, Beijing has worked to preserve and bolster the multilateral trading system while at the same time failing to reform the domestic policies that have served to undermine that same system.
Pakistan and the Israel-Palestine Conflict: Transformation in Pakistan’s Approach After the War in Gaza
Pakistan has long combined vocal support for the Palestinian cause with covert engagement with Israel. Since the war in Gaza, this balance has become untenable: public opinion is united against Israel, joining Trump’s Board of Peace has drawn rare cross-party criticism, and new regional alignments put normalization out of reach.
The Oceania Factor in France’s Evolving Indo-Pacific Strategy
This paper examines the two-way relationship between France’s Indo-Pacific strategy and developments in Oceania. Oceania was not a priority in the initial years of France’s Indo-Pacific strategy, as the region was largely treated as secondary to major strategic hotspots and key partnerships, while overseas territories were primarily handled as domestic issues and recipients of a top-down strategy.