Introduction: Revisiting State Capacity on the COVID-19 Pandemic

State capacity has been considered influential in explaining divergent outcomes related to the COVID-19 pandemic across global regions. This perspective, however, has been widely missing in Latin America, where catastrophic damages and dissimilar state responses have been attributed to political agencies and societal reactions. Against this backdrop, this chapter problematizes state capacity variation and its implications in the region. A review of related literature highlights three questions of the book: (1) What do state strengths and weaknesses explain about the responses and outcomes to the COVID-19 pandemic? (2) What solutions were practically available when state capacity was weak or limited? and (3) What does the COVID-19 pandemic update as regard with the meaning of state capacity? State capacity is a widely used concept in comparative studies, and Latin American social science has accumulated rich debate during the last decade. Following this tradition, this chapter articulates the concept by distinguishing what state capacity is from what it is not. Methodological perspectives and the book structure are also explained.