Korea and Japan, neighboring democratic countries in Northeast Asia, announced their first COVID-19 cases in January 2020 and witnessed similar patterns of disease spread but adopted different policy approaches to address the pandemic (agile and proactive approach versus cautious and restraint-based approach). Applying the political nexus triad model, this study analyzes and compares institutional contexts and governance structures of Korea and Japan, then examines the differences in policy responses of the two Asian countries. This study first reviews the state of COVID-19 and examines changes in the conventional president-led political nexus triad in Korea and the bureaucracy-led political nexus triad in Japan. Then, this study examines how the differences in institutional contexts and governance structures shaped policy responses and policy outcomes of the two countries in managing the COVID-19 crisis.

Points for practitioners

• Institutional and governance structure in a society are likely to affect policymaking processes as well as selection of policies among various policy alternatives. • Government officials often need to refer to government capacity as well as citizens’ voluntary participation in resolving wicked policy problems like COVID-19. • Policy decisions made by government officials affect policy outcomes while political environment and political leadership are equally important to policy effectiveness.

中文翻译：

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韩国和日本对COVID-19回应的比较研究：政治关系三合会和政策回应

韩国和日本，东北亚的邻国民主国家，于2020年1月宣布了首例COVID-19病例，目睹了相似的疾病传播模式，但采取了不同的政策方法来应对大流行（敏捷和主动方法与谨慎和克制方法） 。本研究运用政治关系三合会模型，分析和比较了韩国和日本的制度背景和治理结构，然后考察了这两个亚洲国家在政策应对方面的差异。这项研究首先回顾了COVID-19的状况，并考察了韩国传统的总统领导的政治关系三合会和日本官僚主义的政治关系三合会的变化。然后，

从业人员要点

•社会中的制度和治理结构可能会影响决策过程以及各种替代方案中的政策选择。•政府官员通常需要参考政府的能力以及公民的自愿参与来解决诸如COVID-19之类的邪恶政策问题。•政府官员做出的政策决定会影响政策结果，而政治环境和政治领导对政策有效性同样重要。