Administrative characteristics and timing of governments' crisis responses: A global study of early reactions to COVID-19

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Jugl, Marlene
• 署名单位: Bocconi University
• 刊物名称: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-3298
• DOI: 10.1111/padm.12889
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 1408-1426
• 关键词: coordination; management; POLICY; COMMUNICATION

摘要

In a crisis, fast reaction is key. But what can public administration tell us about this? This study develops a theoretical framework explaining how administrative characteristics, including fragmentation, capacities, legacies and learning, affect governments' response timing. The COVID-19 pandemic is exploited as a unique empirical setting to test this framework and its scope conditions. Region fixed-effects models and survival analysis of partly hand collected data for more than 150 national governments confirm some limited predictive power of administrative structures and traditions: Especially in developing countries, governments with a separate ministry of health adopted binding containment measures faster. Countries with hierarchical administrative traditions, for example, socialist, adopted some interventions like school closures faster than more liberal traditions, for example, Anglo-American. These characteristics increase threat perception and availability of a response, respectively. Results also suggest that intracrisis and intercrisis learning supply governments with response options. The study advances comparative public administration and crisis research.