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Laos in 2020: Reaping a harvest of unity and debt
journal contribution
posted on 2021-01-01, 00:00 authored by H HighIn 2020, Laos successfully contained the spread of COVID-19, with very few cases and no deaths. The key elements of the COVID-19 response reflect not only public health advice but also the core values of the political culture promoted by the ruling Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. These include unity, solidarity, struggle, respect for science, guidance by a strong center, and the extension of the state into everyday life in the form of designated roles, committees, and organizations. These significantly shaped the social fabric drawn on in the COVID-19 response. This success, then, can be read as a reaping of some of the benefits of this political culture. More ominously, the global pandemic exacerbated Lao PDR’s public debt crisis. Born of years of government backing of megaprojects such as hydropower, this debt is the dark harvest of the LPRP’s reign.
History
Journal
Asian SurveyVolume
61Issue
1Pagination
144 - 148Publisher
University of California PressLocation
Berkeley, Calif.Publisher DOI
ISSN
0004-4687eISSN
1533-838XLanguage
engPublication classification
C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalUsage metrics
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