Dr. Stephen E. Hanson Publishes Opinion Piece about the Resistance to COVID Mandates
Dr. Stephen E. Hanson of the Government Department recently co-authored an opinion piece titled “Why can’t we mandate anything” with Dr. Jeffrey S. Kopstein for The Hill. In this article, Dr. Hanson and Dr. Kopstein describe the drive behind the resistance against the COVID vaccines and other COVID mandates as “[t]he resistance to standard health measures is part of a broad global decline in how people see the legitimacy of apolitical, rational state bureaucracies.” This “rebellion against the very idea of binding, impersonal legal rules and procedures” explains the rejection of scientific and professional expertise during the current pandemic. Ultimately, the authors argue that a “robust defense of rational, reasonable public health measures to fight COVID-19” is vital in rebuffing this resistance in addition to “rebuild[ing] public for the idea of bureaucratic expertise itself.”
