Crisis management in authoritarian regimes: A comparative study of COVID-19 responses in Turkey and Iran

The new coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, was first identified in late 2019 and declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020. Turkey and Iran have been heavily affected by the outbreak, with over 460,000 and 890,000 cases reported respectively, so far. Even though these two countries have similar political and ideological approaches and are roughly the same size in terms of population density, as well as despite a high number of reported COVID-19 cases, a fast infection spread rate, and mismanagement of the crisis in both countries, Turkey's death toll remained lower when compared to the death toll in Iran. Deploying a comparative case study methodology drawing on an analysis of secondary sources, this study investigates Turkey and Iran's official responses to COVID-19 to further understand authoritarian reactions to large-scale crises and how distinctions between the actions taken by authoritarian regimes might impact crisis management in such contexts.