Hello, 

Welcome to my project: "Individualism and Collectivism: An American and Indonesian Comparison and Analysis on Federal Government Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic"! 

I created this project during Lafayette College's Digital Humanities Summer Scholar Program, whom I would like to thank for their help and support during my research.  

In this project, I studied the impact of individualism and collectivism as typical dimensions to describe eastern and western countries, using The United States and Indonesia to represent the East and the West, respectively, in my case study. COVID-19 emphasized that individualistic or collectivistic orientations impact both day-to-day life and tumultuous events. In this case: a pandemic. So, I asked myself: do the influences of collectivism or individualism within culture also extend to the actions and responses of federal governments? And did the response of the United States, as a historically, politically, economically, and socially individualistic country, differ from the response of Indonesia’s central government as a country deeply rooted in collectivism. 

You will see that Americans and Indonesians are impacted socially and culturally by individualism and collectivism in this project. However, the responses and actions of former United States President Donald Trump and current Indonesian President Joko Widodo to the COVID-19 pandemic do not appear to have significant differences. Therefore, the cultural differences between individualistic and collectivist cultures are not reflected or extended in the actions of the federal government.

Catherine O’Connor 

Lafayette College ‘23 

A.B. Government and Law, A.B. History