As we watch President Trump tell the states they have to do more to find their own personal protective equipment for their health-care workers, governors lash back with demands for a national leader who will unlock the emergency powers of the federal government.

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed major weaknesses in the federalist system of public health governance, which divides powers among the federal, state and local governments, argues SHP’s Michelle Mello in this New England Journal of Medicine commentary.

The coronavirus, she writes, “is exactly the type of infectious disease for which federal public health powers and emergencies were conceived: it is highly transmissible, crosses borders efficiently, and threatens our national infrastructure and economy.”

“Strong, decisive national action is therefore imperative,” writes Mello, a professor of medicine and a professor of law, and Rebecca L. Haffajee, a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. “Yet the federal response has been alarmingly slow to develop, fostering confusion about the nature of the virus and necessary steps to address it.”

The authors warn this “lack of interjurisdictional coordination has and will cost lives.”

Though states must respect constitutionally protected individual rights — such as due process, equal protection and freedom of travel and association — the Constitution puts primary responsibility for public health with the states, cities and counties. It gives them the right to exercise broad police powers to protect their citizens’ health during ordinary times.

In extraordinary times — like the one we’re experiencing now — states and the federal government can activate emergency powers to expand their abilities to act swiftly and protect human life and health. All 50 states and dozens of localities and the federal government have declared emergencies.

“The resulting executive powers are sweeping: they can range from halting business operations, to restricting freedom of movement, to limiting civil rights and liberties, to commandeering property,” Mello and Haffajee write in the NEJM Perspective.

This emergency legal framework has led to too few checks-and-balances on poor decisions—historically, in the direction of being overly aggressive, write the authors. They note a good example is when New Jersey’s governor ordered a nurse returning from Sierra Leone during the 2014 Ebola outbreak into quarantine, contrary to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.

Too Little Too Late? 

“Today, we find ourselves in the opposite situation: the federal government has done too little,” the authors write. “Perhaps because of misleading early statements from federal officials about the gravity of the COVID-19 threat, public sentiment has weighed against taking steps that would impose hardships on families and businesses.”

The tumbling stock market and unprecedented 10 million unemployment claims last month also have created further pressure by the federal government to project a sense of calm.

“The resulting laconic federal response has meant that a precious opportunity to contain COVID-19 through swift, unified national action has been lost — a scenario that mirrors what occurred in Italy,” they write.

So the states had to pick up where the federal government fell short, the authors note. Many jurisdictions issued stay-at-home orders; others did not. As of March 31, more than a dozen governors had yet to issue statewide stay-at-home orders and eight had only ordered partial measures. Yet many jurisdictions turn a blind eye, they note, to noncompliance with social-distancing recommendations issued by the CDC, as evidenced by crowded beaches and children congregating in public parks.

“This is the dark side of federalism: it encourages a patchwork response to epidemics,” the authors write.

“A federal takeover of all public health orders would be out of step with our federalist structure,” the authors state, but there remain three good options:

• “The White House must reverse its current trajectory toward prematurely weakening existing federal measures and the resolve of governors who are enforcing stay-at-home orders and school closures.” Trump said last week he wanted the United States “opened up and raring to go by Easter.” A few days later, he heeded the call of medical experts and extended social-distancing guidelines until the end of April, but public health experts believe the crisis will likely be with us longer.
• Congress should “use its spending power to further encourage states to follow a uniform playbook for community mitigation that includes measures for effective enforcement of public health orders.” It could threaten to withhold some federal funds from states that do not comply.
• “Congress could leverage its interstate-commerce powers to regular economic activities that affect the interstate spread” of COVID-19, such as restricting large businesses from traveling and operating across state lines in ways that expose workers to risk.

The White House could also make further use of the Defense Production Act (DPA) to direct private companies to produce badly needed ventilators and personal protective equipment for health-care workers, the authors write. Trump has ordered General Motors to manufacture ventilators and the $2 trillion stimulus package includes $1 billion for DPA projects.                                                                     

“Learning is difficult in the midst of an emergency, but one lesson from the COVID-19 epidemic is already clear: when epidemiologists warn that a pathogen has pandemic potential, the time to fly the flag of local freedom is over,” the authors conclude. “Yet national leadership in epidemic response works only if it is evidence-based. It is critical that the U.S. response to COVID-19 going forward be not only national, but rational.”

Agricultural and development economist Christopher B. Barrett, a visiting scholar with the Center on Food Security and the Environment (FSE), gave a lecture at Stanford on food systems advances over the past 50 years that have promoted unprecedented reduction globally in poverty and hunger, averted considerable deforestation, and broadly improved lives, livelihoods and environments in much of the world (watch video here or below).

In that lecture, and a related interview with FSE Senior Fellow Roz Naylor (watch video here or below), Barrett shared perspectives on the reasons why, despite advances, those systems increasingly fail large communities in environmental, health, and increasingly in economic terms and appear ill-suited to cope with inevitable further changes in climate, incomes, and population over the coming 50 years. Barrett explored the new generation of innovations underway that must overcome a host of scientific and socioeconomic obstacles. 

To support Stanford students working in the area of contemporary Asia, the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center is offering up to ten research assistant internships for summer 2020 and up to three predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year. The Center will review applications starting April 15 and expects to fill the positions by April 30, 2020. 

Amid the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, students are facing summer internship cancelations and hiring freezes. They are left wondering about the long-term implications of the current crisis for their academic careers and their access to future jobs and valuable work experience.

At Shorenstein APARC, we want to do all we can to support Stanford students. That’s why we are announcing new internship and fellowship opportunities for current students working in the area of contemporary Asia: research assistant internships for the summer quarter of 2020 and predoctoral fellowships for the 2020-21 academic year.

The summer internships are all remote: research assistants will work as telecommuters. Regarding the predoctoral fellowships, we hope we can all have a normal 2020-21 academic year, in which case we expect the fellows to be in residence, but we will reassess the evolving COVID-19 situation closer to the appointment start dates and shift to flexible, online options as needed.

APARC will review applications for both opportunities on a rolling basis starting April 15, 2020. The Center will select up to ten research assistants and up to three predoctoral fellows by April 30, 2020.

Read on to learn more about these offerings and the application requirements, and follow the guidelines below to submit your candidacy.

Summer 2020 APARC Research Assistant Internships

Shorenstein APARC is seeking highly motivated and dedicated undergraduate and graduate students to join our team as paid research assistant interns for the summer quarter of 2020. Research assistants will work with assigned APARC faculty members on projects focused on contemporary Asia, studying varied issues related to the politics, economies, populations, security, foreign policies, and international relations of the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

All positions will be for eight weeks starting late June or early July 2020. The hourly pay rate is $17 for undergraduate students, $25 for graduate students.

Research assistant positions are open to current Stanford students only. Undergraduate- and graduate-level students are eligible to apply.

Apply Now

• Complete the application form and submit it along with these two (2) required attachments:
  • CV;
  • A cover letter (up to 1 page).
• Arrange for a letter of recommendation from a faculty to be sent directly to APARC. Please note: the faculty members should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents.  

2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowships

APARC is inviting applications from current Stanford students for the 2020-21 Shorenstein APARC Predoctoral Fellowship. The fellowship supports predoctoral students working within a broad range of topics related to contemporary Asia. 

Up to three fellowships are available to Ph.D. candidates who have completed all fieldwork and are nearing the completion of their dissertation. The Center will give priority to candidates who are prepared to finish their degree by the end of the 2020-21 academic year.

Shorenstein APARC offers a stipend of $36,075 for the 2020-21 academic year, plus Stanford's Terminal Graduate Registration (TGR) fee for three quarters. We expect fellows to remain in residence at the Center throughout the year and to participate in Center activities.

Apply Now

• Complete the application form and submit it along with these three (3) required attachments:
  • CV;
  • A cover letter including a brief description of your dissertation (up to 5 double-spaced pages);
  • A copy of your transcripts. Transcripts should cover all graduate work and include evidence of recently-completed work.
• Arrange for two (2) letters of recommendation from members of your dissertation committee to be sent directly to Shorenstein APARC. Please note: the faculty/advisors should email their letters directly to Kristen Lee at kllee@stanford.edu.

We will consider only complete applications that include all the abovementioned supporting documents. 

There is a Korean expression that means “to become soaked by a drizzle without noticing.” This metaphor is a timely warning against the gradual decline of democratic norms. Though some of the changes underlying this global phenomenon are subtle, they are producing creeping, piecemeal erosions of democracy and pluralism. The signs of democratic backsliding are now emerging everywhere in South Korean society, and a failure to recognize and robustly counter their effects may create future costs that prove unbearable. 

My new article, “Korean Democracy Is Sinking Under the Guise of the Rule of Law,” published in the April 2020 issue of the South Korean magazine Shindonga (New East Asia, the oldest monthly in Korea), examines how the Moon administration is sinking into a democratic recession and considers its actions as a case study with lessons for averting broader, global trends in democratic decline.

In all corners of the world, we witness freely elected leaders gradually dismantle democratic institutional safeguards, fuse political polarization with chauvinistic populism, and focus on narrow interpretations of the national interest just as China and Russia expand their scope of influence via “sharp power,” subversive means.

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As my analysis shows, this crusading mindset has insinuated itself into more concrete actions by the Moon government, such as the calculated blurring of the separation of powers through political interference in the courts, deliberate changes to longstanding election laws that damage the spirit of democracy, and the blatant use of double standards and ideological loyalty in the execution of national policies. Similar patterns are taking hold in populist governments the world over, and – perhaps most disconcertingly – they transpire not through the strong-arming of a military coup or violent political disruption but through the legal procedures and policies meant to keep such canker in check.

To overcome its wave of democratic recession South Korea must cast away political polarization and demonstrate a firm resolve to act in accordance with democratic norms. The upcoming April 15 legislative election must sound a clear alarm against all actors who damage these core principles, regardless of their party affiliation and irrespective of their ideology. 

Read the complete English translation of my article or the original Korean version here: