Interplay of institutional logics in legitimising state COVID-19 responses in Tanzania: analysis of newspaper reporting

Amid the global impact of the March 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, governments instituted measures to manage the spread of the virus and needed to legitimise these responses to appear rational and appropriate in the eyes of citizens. We focus on Tanzania, which offers an example of a particular COVID-19 response of not having instituted lockdowns or other long-lasting movement restrictions. Drawing on an institutional logics approach, and by conducting a content analysis of 738 newspaper articles in 2020 to 2022, we explore the kinds of logics through which the state legitimised diverse responses during the pandemic and how these changed over time. Results show how the health and economic logics manifested the most, but also state authority, state welfare, religion, traditional and science logics were used. We further discuss the interplay between changes in the logics and in presidential regimes in the midst of the pandemic.