In order to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, during the first wave of the pandemic numerous countries decided to adopt lockdown policies. It had been a considerable time since such measures were last introduced, and the first time that they were implemented on such a global scale in a contemporary, information intensive society. The effectiveness of such measures may depend on how citizens perceive the capacity of government to set up and implement sound policies. Indeed, lockdown and confinement policies in general are binding measures that people are not used to, and which raise serious concerns among the population. For this reason governance quality could affect the perception of the benefits related to the government’s choice to impose lockdown, making citizens more inclined to accept it and restrict their movements. In the present paper we empirically investigate the relation between the efficacy of lockdown and governance quality (measured through World Governance Indicators). Our results suggest that countries with higher levels of government effectiveness, rule of law and regulatory quality reach better results in adopting lockdown measures.

为了控制 COVID-19 大流行的蔓延，在第一波大流行期间，许多国家决定采取封锁政策。自上次引入此类措施以来已经有相当长的时间了，也是在当代信息密集型社会中首次在如此全球范围内实施这些措施。这些措施的有效性可能取决于公民如何看待政府制定和实施健全政策的能力。事实上，总体而言，封锁和限制政策是人们不习惯的具有约束力的措施，并引起了民众的严重关注。出于这个原因，治理质量可能会影响对政府选择实施封锁的好处的看法，使公民更倾向于接受它并限制他们的行动。在本文中，我们实证研究了封锁的有效性与治理质量（通过世界治理指标衡量）之间的关系。我们的研究结果表明，政府效率、法治和监管质量水平较高的国家在采取封锁措施方面取得了更好的效果。