Preexisting political institutions influence governments' responses to public health crises in different ways, creating national variations. This article investigates how state capacity, a country's fundamental ability to organize bureaucracy and allocate societal resources, affects the timing and configuration of governments' COVID-19 policy responses. Through comparative case study analysis of five of China's neighboring countries early in the COVID-19 crisis, the paper shows that more-capable states (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan) initiated crisis response faster, mobilized national resources more extensively, and utilized diverse policy tools when the virus risk level was still low. In contrast, low-capacity states (Thailand and Indonesia) were more reactive in handling the crisis, limited their focus to border-related measures, and were more constrained in the types of tools they could employ. The paper points to the importance of studying the COVID-19 response process rather than the outcome (i.e., confirmed cases/deaths) when unpacking the impacts of political institutions in public health crises.
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