Centralized or Decentralized
Which Governance Systems are Having a “Good” Pandemic?
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Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has had devastating effects across the world, yet different countries have had varying degrees of success in their attempts to manage it. One of the reasons behind the different outcomes observed so far lies in the strengths and weaknesses of different governance arrangements leveraged to tackle the crisis. In this article we examine what we can learn about the operational capacity of different democracies through their early responses to the crisis. We provide a framework of four positive qualities of multilevel governance that might lead to greater chances of positive practical outcomes and present an illustrative case study of the experiences of Switzerland and the United Kingdom (UK). We conclude with some areas for further research and investigation.
Contributor Notes
Jennifer Gaskell is a Research Fellow on the TrustGov project at the University of Southampton. She holds an interdisciplinary PhD in web science from the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on the ways new information and communication technologies impact civic and political participation. E-mail: J.Gaskell@soton.ac.uk.
Gerry Stoker is Centenary Research Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia and Chair in Governance at the University of Southampton, UK. He has authored or edited 33 books and published over 120 refereed articles or chapters in books. His work has been translated into many different languages. E-mail: g.stoker@soton.ac.uk