Anti-Pandemic Policies in Estonia and Taiwan: Digital Power, Sovereignty and Biopolitics
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Paper discuss about very important issue that is Anti-pandemic Policies in Estonia and Taiwan. A very strong point of the article is a thoroughly conducted literature review and the characterized political situation of selected countries. The authors have made every effort to highlight the importance of digitization in the times of covid.
In the introduction, I propose to provide the goals of the work.
Authors put the same text in abstract and introduction: "The article consists of three parts. We start by engaging with the ongoing academic debate on the...." I propose to change this text and put into the abstract only what was the main paper aim.
In point 4 authors write that: "We relate the empirical analysis of the cases of Estonia and Taiwan with a broader debate ..." there is no information on how the authors will perform empirical analysis - with what tools. The analysis period was not given and the research object was not characterized.
The weakness of the material is the empirical analysis carried out by the authors. The material is very interesting, while the presentation is quite intricate and illegible. I propose to present a flowchart of the analysis carried out, thanks to which the reader will easily find out how the analysis is going. I also propose to develop drawings with data, about which the authors only write in a "dry" manner. The authors have very interesting data that is worth presenting graphically.
Author Response
We have reformulated the abstract and emphasized the goals of the study.
We have also clarified the empirical part of the article, and added the time frame.
To present some of our data in a comparative way we have added a table.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is well-written and has an easy to follow logic. The analytical perspective is clear and reasonable. While the goal of this paper is not to test any theories or to theoretically explain the causal relationship of its empirical study, the analysis of the two cases are insightful and informative. I recommend its publication after minor revisions.
The author may take into consideration the following points when revising the manuscript.
The first issue is about case selection. The paper focuses on two cases, Estonia and Taiwan. Both countries are successful in making use of digital tools to combat Covid-19. While it’s important to analyze these two successful cases, the author may need to tell us more about the research design and case selection. Compared to other countries, why were the two cases selected for comparison? Was the selection made by the logic of most similar research design? If not, what is the reason to justify this comparison?
In addition, it will be helpful if the author provides a table or figure illustrating the differences and similarities between Estonia and Taiwan.
Third, for the Taiwan case, the author may want to mention that the government never declared a state of emergency.
Author Response
We have added an explanation of the case selection on the basis of the similar research design principle.
The comparative table was also inserted.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors created the table in the paper, but there is no summary of the table, which is based on the data for the topic. There are still not enough graphics in the work that would be worth the article. I propose to improve it. The study did not draw any hypothesis regarding the conducted research, and the summary did not make any reference to future research. There are a lot of grammatical errors in the work that require correction.
Author Response
We have reformulated our hypothesis in the very first paragraph and made clearer in the last paragraph how this study might trigger fuiture research on the topic (marked in blue in the text). We have also checked the spelling and grammar (one of co-authors is a native speaking American).
Since we are not experts in graphics, we are hesitant to add any additional visuals.
