Political leadership and the coronavirus crisis; Case study of the United States, India, and Germany

Following the official announcement of the first cases of the COVID-19 virus in China on late December 2019, it outbreak rapidly to most parts of the world and putting the world in a state of emergency. Different governments have reacted differently to this crisis. It is noteworthy that variables such as the type of political regime, the structure of government and the capacity of governments have not necessarily a direct and decisive relationship with countries' response to this crisis. For example, the number of mortality in developed and democratic countries such as the United States, Spain, Britain and Italy has been much higher than some developing countries. The key question of this paper is that "What is the reason for the different behavior of different countries in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic?" The hypothesis of this article is that "in times of crisis, the most important factor in determining the reaction of countries is political leadership and different ways of sense-making." This article judges this hypothesis with using the CIP leadership model and dividing leadership and sense-making into charismatic, ideological, and pragmatic, and case studies of India, the United States, and Germany, the authors, while proving and confirming the article hypothesis, have concluded that pragmatic leadership is more effective in the recent crisis.