Principal investigator: Eduarda Miller Figueiredo
Location of the Intervention:
Sample Size:
Sector: Health/Politics
Primary Variable of Interest: –
Type of InterventionPolitical responses to the fight against Covid-19
Methodology: Others
Countries have had to implement a wide variety of policy measures to combat Covid-19. The aim of this article was to demonstrate how the combination of institutional, psychological, and strategic factors helps to explain the different policy and governance choices that governments made during the pandemic.
- Policy Problem
To deal with the Covid-19 pandemic, countries needed to implement a wide variety of policy measures, including public health measures and fiscal measures to combat the economic costs of the pandemic (Capano et al., 2020). This fight involved the action of various government bodies at different levels, highlighting the central role that government plays in many areas, especially from the point of view of public health governance.
To explain the variations in responses among governmental jurisdictions, it is necessary, in their analysis, to observe political interventions or governance arrangements – or both. The application of theories and concepts from political science focuses attention on a variety of institutional, psychological, and strategic choices made by decision-makers (Howlett, Ramesh, and Perl, 2020). Furthermore, that insights Studies in governance thinking can help explain the importance of these institutional factors, while political theory helps reveal the significant impact of psychological and strategic thinking on decision-making.
Given this, the article seeks to demonstrate how this combination of institutional, psychological, and strategic factors, operating in the arenas of politics and governance, helps to better explain the policy and governance choices that different governments made during the pandemic that has plagued the world in recent years.
- Implementation and Evaluation Context
In the state-centered governance model, governance confers a central role on the government in policy formulation and highlights the importance of various types of institutional factors in how this is done (Fukuyama, 2013).[1]And, when observing the fight against Covid-19, there is even greater emphasis on the need to examine government responses to the pandemic through this lens of governance more centered on the state, bringing to light the institutional factors that affected government responses to the coronavirus (Capango, 2011).
However, by using a society-centered governance lens, scholars in the field can examine issues such as:
- Was there a national/state/municipal pandemic strategy, and if so, did the government closely follow it during the Covid-19 outbreak with regard to decision-making structures and operational management procedures?
- Which non-state actors participated in the Covid-19 response and in what ways?
- How limited was the role of the social group or other non-state actor in addressing the crisis?
- How often, if ever, has the government sought parliamentary approval before extending or strengthening emergency laws?
- What mechanisms have enabled the government to maintain a close dialogue with relevant experts and non-governmental organizations regarding effective measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus and mitigate its non-health-related outcomes?
However, this approach misses many of the key dimensions of government responses to the crisis that become more apparent when a state-centric approach is adopted. That is, in all countries, the general stance adopted in response to the pandemic was one of centralization of power (Capano et al., 2020). Therefore, the state-centric approach addresses key questions in evaluating state responses to Covid-19 at the national level – such as the extent to which elected officials at different levels of government consulted doctors, scientists, and public health experts to arrive at an informed policy response?
- Policy/Program Details
The literature on Covid-19 suggests that policy executives replaced emergency management experts in leading the fight against the coronavirus (Capano et al., 2020), and central governments, through legislation, imposed a combination of policy measures to reduce the spread of the disease.
Political measures varied between countries and also within countries. For example, Italy, France, and Spain closed down virtually the entire city (lockdownIn the UK, however, closures occurred after some time. In Germany, schools were closed, while in Sweden, schools for young children remained open.
Therefore, it was based on secondary sources on policy and governance responses to Covid-19 and on media interviews with Prime Ministers and Ministers that the authors analyzed the divergent policy responses to the fight against the virus.
- Method
Through the analysis, it was possible to see that institutional, psychological, and strategic factors help explain the choice of different policies and governance approaches that governments adopted in the fight against the pandemic.
Institutional factors relate to how state and social actors are organized and interact in policymaking. This includes the level of government effectiveness, its degree of freedom to manage, levels of social trust, the existence of separate health ministries and health ministers with medical training, the extent to which ruling parties are well-established, the real power of governors vis-à-vis the federal government, and the legacy of existing social policies and universal social programs. Psychological factors include elite panic and limited government attention span. Finally, strategic factors include underlying political considerations in policy and governance choices when elected officials face profound uncertainty.
- Main results
European countries demonstrated a variety of national policy responses to the pandemic. Romania, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic introduced measures fairly quickly, while the Netherlands, Germany, and France acted slowly (Toshkov, Yesilkagit, and Carroll, 2020).
And, through multivariate regression and survival analysis, Toshkov, Yesilkagit, and Carroll (2020) found that more centralized countries, characterized by lower government effectiveness, freedom, and social trust, acted more quickly and decisively. However, societies with greater interpersonal trust, trust in government, and general freedom reacted more slowly to the spread of the pandemic.
To explain the variation in responses from Argentina and Brazil, Giraudy, Niedzwiecki, and Pribble (2020) suggest: (i) the extent to which the president's party is well established; (ii) the real power of governors in relation to the federal government; and (iii) the legacy of existing social policy and universal social programs.
The psychological factor – elite panic – had consequences for governance, as some decision-makers realized that this elite panic had taken root in the highest echelons. For example, the Prime Minister of Israel agreed to all measures indicated by the Ministry of Health, while the Minister of Finance stated that, as a result, the economy was sacrificed due to the chaotic and exaggerated decision regarding the pandemic, according to the Minister of Finance.
According to the authors, the Israeli case provides a classic example of extreme uncertainty during the fight against Covid-19, with implications for the strategic dimension of policymaking and governance in the face of the crisis. From a governance perspective, the strict measures employed to contain the spread of the coronavirus allowed the Prime Minister to adopt disorganized, uncoordinated, unregulated, and uninformed modes of governance to achieve political gains (Maor, 2020).
- Lessons in Public Policy
The article, by discussing the combination of governance and political theory, contributes to the understanding of the political dynamics of Covid-19. It demonstrates that, for governance to contribute to the understanding of political practice, it must operate at the level of causal analysis.
References
MAOR, Moshe; HOWLETT, Michael. Explaining variations in state COVID-19 responses: Psychological, institutional, and strategic factors in governance and public policy-making. Policy Design and Practice, v. 3, no. 3, p. 228-241, 2020.
[1] Governance is defined as “the ability of a government to make and enforce rules and provide services, regardless of whether that government is democratic or not” (Fukuyama, 2013).
