Crafting Compliance Regime under COVID‐19: Using Taiwan's Quarantine Policy as a Case Study
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| Author | Wei‐Ting Yen,Li‐Yin Liu |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12967 |
Crafting Compliance Regime under COVID-19:
Using Taiwan’s Quarantine Policy as a Case
Study
Wei-Ting Yen
Franklin and Marshall College
Li-Yin Liu
University of Dayton
Abstract
One year after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, governments around the world adopt
similar practices in containing the COVID-19 spread. Nevertheless, variation exists in the level of policy compliance, which
directly contribute to policy success/failure across countries. As the pandemic continues, pandemic fatigue also decreases the
public’s willingness to comply. Increasing policy compliance during the remainder of pandemic has become a transnational
concern. Using Taiwan’s quarantine policy as an example, this article illustrates three aspects to craft an effective compliance
regime to fight public health crises like COVID-19: (1) a comprehensive policy mix to reduce heterogeneous compliance barri-
ers that impact different social groups; (2) constant and various policy communication with heterogeneous target audiences;
and (3) leveraging and integrating street-level bureaucrats in the policy implementation stages. Taiwan’s case provides several
policy lessons for other countries: compliance regime is not driven by top-down enforcement but through the integration of
policy design and implementation that remove all barriers for compliance. Taiwan’s street level bureaucrats are the glue of
the compliance regime. This article bears policy implications for policy makers around the world when aiming for increasing
policy compliance.
1.COVID-19 policy success hinges on policy
compliance
Coping with low compliance with public measure has been
one of the biggest challenges for governments to cope with
COVID-19 (Bargain and Aminjonov, 2020). One year after the
World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a global
pandemic, governments around the world are still learning
from each other and adopting similar practices proven suc-
cessful in containing the coronavirus spread (Sebhatu et al.,
2020). Social behavior measures (e.g., social distancing, quar-
antine, mask-wearing, etc.) are common regulations across
nations. Yet, this global-level policy diffusion does not yield
similar results, and the variation of public compliance
directly contributes to the discrepancy observed in policy
outcomes across countries (Clark et al., 2020). For example,
across Europe and the US, COVID-19 cases and deaths reach
record-high numbers, while countries, like Singapore and
Taiwan, are able to ensure the effectiveness of COVID-19
related policy due to public’s willingness to comply.
Policy compliance is indispensable to achieving the
intended COVID-19 policy goals. Regulations designed to
prevent the coronavirus spread are useless unless the major-
ity of citizens comply (Weaver, 2014). Ensuring public com-
pliance is already a challenging task under normal
circumstances (Howlett, 2018; Weaver, 2015); such difficulties
are exacerbated under emergency contexts like COVID-19
(Atalay and Meloy, 2020). In particular, growing pandemic
fatigue has decreased individual risk perception against the
virus and lowered trust levels in government authority,
which further hinders willingness to comply with policies.
Despite the fact vaccines are in sight, vaccination alone will
not be sufficient to end the pandemic immediately (Reuters,
2020). Vaccine uptake compliance will also need to be high
enough to achieve herd immunity. Effective policy design
and implementation have become more important than
ever to overcome pandemic fatigue and to improve policy
compliance.
With that in mind, this article uses Taiwan’s quarantine
policy as an example to illustrate what the compliance
regime looks like in theory and in practice. While most
countries are still struggling with rising cases and public
noncompliance, Taiwan blocked COVID-19 out of its local
communities for more than eight months, with the total
cases only around 1,000. Due to its proximity to China, Tai-
wan started coping with the COVID-19 crisis three months
earlier than most Western countries. Instead of showing
pandemic fatigue, Taiwan citizens relentlessly show high
levels of policy compliance (Huang, 2020a, 2020b). How
does Taiwan maintain the public’s willingness to comply
©2021 Durham University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.Global Policy (2021) 12:4 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12967
Global Policy Volume 12 . Issue 4 . September 2021
562
Policy Insights
Get this document and AI-powered insights with a free trial of vLex and Vincent AI
Get Started for FreeStart Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting
Start Your 3-day Free Trial of vLex and Vincent AI, Your Precision-Engineered Legal Assistant
-
Access comprehensive legal content with no limitations across vLex's unparalleled global legal database
-
Build stronger arguments with verified citations and CERT citator that tracks case history and precedential strength
-
Transform your legal research from hours to minutes with Vincent AI's intelligent search and analysis capabilities
-
Elevate your practice by focusing your expertise where it matters most while Vincent handles the heavy lifting