Folks: I am trained as a comparativist political scientist. I specialize in comparative public policy.

I am here to tell you that
a) Yes, you SHOULD compare countries' responses to COVID-19
b) Yes, IT IS POSSIBLE to compare responses across countries
c) Yes, it IS possible...

... to compare subnational responses (state-level, city-level) with the federal-level (national) response.
d) All three comparisons, plus those done across countries at the same level (city-city, state-state, country-country), CAN be done AND are legitimate.

Let me explain.

Most of us trained in political science and public policy, and more specifically comparative politics and comparative public policy have in one way or another learned how to conduct structured comparisons. Most of us have read this paper https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1955513.pdf?casa_token=pvb8yKzFMJ8AAAAA:5JSNqkyz97sVn8XLV69fElT9psDUlQ4JIQtAeAUA2Pq6cRHNdK2ewcnYO0WNP8YdrIqd29mz1u9hDSMLa-U0yKVxmxmiBz_MNEo8c9lxsjyzEQbufLE (Lijphart 1971)

One reason why CP and CPP are hard to do (as is most comparative work) is that you need to think REALLY HARD about which dimensions you compare, how you select cases for comparison, how to structure the comparisons you conduct, and how to ensure that your analyses have validity.

There is a MEGA TONNE of scholarship on how to conduct structured comparisons, not only in political science, but also sociology, anthropology, geography. I say this because comparing countries' responses doesn't just imply looking at death rates, growth in positive cases, etc.

(note that in the previous tweet I brought up comparing case data (active cases), rates of transmission, mortality rates, etc. - it should be obvious I am talking about COVID-19 but this applies to any other infectious disease). Anyhow, there are two items that people need to...

... take into account: we can compare how countries, cities, regions have responded, ALL THE WHILE RECOGNIZING THE ENORMOUS DIVERSITY AND HETEROGENEITY ACROSS CASES.

Different countries, cities and states will respond to the same epidemic of infectious disease in different ways

What I mean is that there are people (epidemiologists) who should be looking at the comparative epidemiology of COVID-19, perhaps vis-a-vis other coronaviruses, other pandemics, etc.

And then, there are people like me (and others) who should be looking at the comparative ...

... politics of policy responses.

THESE ARE DIFFERENT THINGS.

How Mexico and Spain respond (and by response I mean policy response) will depend on so many contextual factors (infrastructure, human capital, etc.) that we need to be careful when we discuss both countries.

That's why, as I have insisted earlier, we need cross-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary work. We all can contribute much from our own disciplinary realms to understand how we can best design the proper response to this pandemic. One single person, discipline,

... is absolutely NOT ENOUGH.

We need work from A LOT OF PEOPLE. Our disciplinary work can contribute to a global understanding of this pandemic. This doesn't mean "stay in your lane", it means "hey, what can YOUR discipline contribute to our collective understanding?"

And for those of you who have used Integrated Assessment (IA) to understand climate change, I am 100% certain you can recognise how we ought to be using IA now to understand COVID-19. I used IA in my PhD dissertation to understand industrial restructuring and clusters.

I feel as though we need an Integrated Assessment of COVID-19, a global one. This will require global coordination of scholars across many disciplines.

I am sure we can do this. It's time to get collaborative.

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