Opportunity management of the COVID-19 pandemic: testing the crisis from a global perspective

Abstract

This article provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of COVID-19 crisis governance in the first half of 2020 from a cross-country comparative perspective. It focuses on the issue of opportunity management, that is, how the crisis was used by relevant actors of distinctly different administrative cultures as a window of opportunity. We started from an overall interest in the factors that have influenced the national politics of crisis management to answer the question of whether and how political and administrative actors in various countries have used the crisis as an opportunity to facilitate, accelerate or prevent changes in institutional settings. The objective is to study the institutional settings and governance structures, (alleged) solutions and remedies, and constellations of actors and preferences that have influenced the mode of crisis and opportunity management. Finally, the article summarizes some major comparative findings drawn from the country studies of this Special Issue, focusing on similarities and differences in crisis responses and patterns of opportunity management.

Points for practitioners

With crises emerging in ever shorter sequences of time, governing turbulence and using crises for strategic institutional decisions has become an increasingly important issue for policymakers. Aiming at effective and proportionate responses, policymakers must take the institutional conditions, administrative traditions and relevant actor constellations of crisis management into account, which are key to learn from other countries’ experiences. Comparing these experiences and analyzing the politics of crisis governance from a cross-country perspective may help policymakers to identify strengths and weaknesses of their own national/regional approaches and to seize crisis-related windows of opportunity for institutional reforms at the national and international levels.

Keywords

administrative culture comparison COVID-19 crisis management governance opportunity management pandemic window of opportunity

Introduction

‘The corona pandemic will forever alter the world order’, stated former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (Wall Street Journal, 2020). Within only a couple of months, COVID-19 affected 209 countries and triggered governments all over the globe to take containment measures of unprecedented severity in order to handle this exceptional situation. The crisis forced political and administrative actors to take drastic decisions, such as lockdowns, shutdowns and other measures to restrict (temporarily or permanently) fundamental freedoms, and to act rapidly under great uncertainty, in some cases, accompanied by further contingencies like national elections (e.g. Poland) or mass events (e.g. Japan). At the same time, the crisis opened a window of opportunity for politicians and leaders to change the rules of the game and transform institutional settings.

In view of this unique situation, this Special Issue analyzes crisis governance in the first semester (January–June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic from a cross-country comparative perspective, taking a global approach. It focuses on the ‘usage’ of the crisis as a window of opportunity by actors of distinctly different administrative cultures, which we label as ‘opportunity management’ (also somewhat ironically paraphrased by Winston Churchill as ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste’). We depart from the overall interest in the factors that have influenced the national politics of crisis management to answer the question of whether and how political and administrative actors in various countries and international organizations (IOs) have used the crisis as an opportunity to facilitate, accelerate or prevent changes in institutional settings. The objective is to study the institutional settings and governance structures, (alleged) solutions and remedies, and constellations of actors and preferences that have influenced the mode of crisis and opportunity management.

This introductory contribution is meant to set the scene of the Special Issue by defining the research issue and the conceptual framework. The purpose is to provide analytical guidance for comparative country analyses, in particular, taking the institutional context conditions, administrative traditions and actor constellations of crisis management into account. Special attention is paid to opportunity management and usage of the crisis.

Our approach distinguishes itself from general crisis management studies by focusing on administrative characteristics, organizational features and actor constellations, in combination with country-specific administrative cultures, which matter for governing turbulence and using the situation for strategic institutional decisions. Taking an institutionalist and organization theory-based perspective (see Christensen et al., 2007, 2019), we concentrate on the structural features, administrative traditions and actor strategies that are key to understanding the process and performance of crisis governance (Andrew, 2013). Although there has been more research after 9/11 on governance structures, organizational aspects and bureaucratic procedures of coping with major crises (see Boin et al., 2015; Comfort et al., 2012; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, 2004; Waugh, 2006), public administration research on crisis management remains rather limited (Boin and Lodge, 2016; Christensen et al., 2019: 13; Kalbassi, 2016). In particular, the politics and opportunity management of crisis governance are largely under-studied topics (Boin and Lodge, 2016: 293). The contributions of this Special Issue are meant to fill this gap in research by focusing on three major analytical dimensions: (1) institutional contexts, administrative cultures and path dependencies; (2) governance arrangements, coordination mechanisms and institutional dynamics; and (3) actor strategies, solutions and opportunity management.

Institutional contexts, administrative cultures and path dependencies

We assume that institutional ‘starting conditions’, administrative cultures and historical path dependencies are salient factors explaining the way of handling major crises (Peters, 2013; Pollitt, 2013). They provide principal causes of different national responses to similar external crisis-related pressures.

From a theoretical viewpoint, this perspective can, on the one hand, be underpinned by historical institutionalism (Pierson, 2004; Steinmo et al., 1992), according to which answers to newly emerging problems are pre-structured by existing institutional arrangements and historically ingrained patterns of problem-solving. On the other hand, we can refer to studies on administrative traditions (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019; Painter and Peters, 2010), according to which cultural patterns and the traditionally underlying social organization are highly relevant to understanding the establishment of new mechanisms for organization in certain public sectors, for example, in response to crises. Hence, the scope of policy options is limited by ‘path dependencies’ (Hall and Taylor, 1996: 941).

From this theoretical perspective, crisis-related institutional responses appear to be conditioned by legacies arising from the past. The existing institutional arrangements are seen ‘as relative persistent features of the historical landscape and one of the central factors pushing historical development along a set of “paths”’ (Hall and Taylor, 1996: 941). Depending on their historically shaped institutional contexts and administrative cultures, countries might view crisis-related challenges very differently. Likewise, similar administrative interventions can bring about very diverse effects in the contexts of the individual countries because they all encounter unique, pre-existing institutional arrangements and administrative cultures. These, in turn, can have either a promoting or blocking effect on specific types of interventions and the resulting outcomes. For instance, for coping with crises, it makes a difference whether public administration works in a more centralized and uniform manner or is largely decentralized and fragmented. Furthermore, majoritarian systems could be assumed to push more far-reaching, comprehensive measures than consensus-oriented governments, where negotiations, bargaining and an overall orientation towards compromise are predominant. Hence, the politics of crisis management can be expected to be more cautious but possibly also benefit from more comprehensive ‘ownership’ and acceptance, which might increase its sustainability over time. Another important element in this context concerns the legal tradition of a country. For instance, in countries with pronounced legalist administrative cultures, a predominance of rule orientation and strong state traditions, we might expect more rigorous interventions into society and a higher acceptance of governmental action by citizens than in countries with a more pragmatic and instrumental understanding of the state and a less clear-cut separation of state and society (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019; Painter and Peters, 2010: 20). The public perception of, and compliance with, mitigation measures, as well as the trust environment and legitimacy context, are crucial (Fimreite et al., 2013). The openness and accessibility of the administrative system to citizens (freedom of information, external transparency, citizen participation, user democracy, etc.), and the relation between citizens and administration (as hierarchical, cooperative, liberal, etc.), largely affect the confidence in authorities and vice versa, therefore influencing the authorities’ capacity to cope with crises.

Governance structures, coordination mechanisms and institutional dynamics

From organizational theory, we know that governance structures and coordination mechanisms are salient for the problem-solving capacity of institutions and the dynamics of coping with external pressures. This also applies to the management of crises, which can equally generate important tensions between the different authorities and actors involved.

The collective understanding and administrative handling of crises are largely shaped by the way institutional rules are (re)defined and tasks (re)allocated across levels and sectors of government, which takes a particular dynamic in times of crisis. For instance, it makes a difference whether competencies are concentrated and centralized or fragmented and devolved to multiple units. Multi-level governance structures and coordination according to the principles of territoriality and/or functionality (Kuhlmann, 2015) are key to the process and outcome of crisis management. Centralized crisis management with a clear hierarchical order and unilateral decisions could make it easier for central governments to intervene and push for uniform mitigation measures to be centrally imposed, monitored and controlled. By contrast, in highly decentralized administrative settings – characterized by strong sub-national units and vertical power-sharing – crisis management can be expected to be less streamlined and more dependent on voluntary local and regional compliance, negotiations, and coordinative efforts across levels. This might result in less coherent and more scattered solutions, though problem-solving might be more adapted to regional contingencies and local needs. In situations of crisis, specialized single-purpose agencies with their own operating procedures, programmes and instruments are, on the one hand, necessary to handle specific (technical, logistical, etc.) problems and to provide professional expertise (Allison, 1971). On the other hand, many loosely coupled semi-autonomous agencies and single-purpose authorities might bring about major challenges for coordination and transboundary governance (Bouckaert et al., 2010). The complexity of governance structures and their influence on decision-making processes during transboundary crises can also enhance the role of institutional veto points in policy decisions (Ganghof, 2003; Immergut, 1992).

Typically, crises cut across policy boundaries and administrative jurisdictions. Therefore, crisis management takes place at the interface of traditional functional spheres and institutional boundaries. Due to this transboundary nature of crises, administrative research must go beyond formal institutional rules and address cross-cutting structures, intertwined coordination mechanisms and multidimensional governance arrangements (Christensen and Lægreid, 2016). Often, tensions and overlaps occur between various types of coordination: vertical and horizontal; territorial and functional; and unilateral and multilateral. Frequently, diverging rationalities must be reconciled by public decision-makers (such as security, health protection, individual rights and civil liberties) (Boin and Lodge, 2016). Accordingly, there is a need for complex institutional responses and varied organizational arrangements to create robust, resilient, flexible and effective systems that ensure sufficient capacities, as well as governance legitimacy (Hood, 1991).

Actor strategies, solutions and opportunity management

Institutional choices strongly depend on ‘endogenous’ forces, in particular, specific actor constellations and power-seeking strategies (see Crozier and Friedberg, 1979). These will largely influence the extent and direction of opportunity management in times of crisis and the way institutional actors use the situation strategically to push their preferences, even beyond the period of acute emergency.

The actor- and opportunity-centred perspective can theoretically be underpinned by the actor-oriented approach of new institutionalism (Mayntz and Scharpf, 1995; Ostrom et al., 1994; Peters, 2013: 108; Scharpf, 1997, 2000), arguing that political and administrative actors make deliberate choices within specific institutional settings. According to this line of thought, crisis management is not determined by institutional settings, context conditions and the nature of the crisis, but shaped by the strategic decisions of political actors seeking to maximize the attainment of a set of goals given by a specific preference function. Although guiding and constraining behaviour, the institutional framework provides considerable scope for strategic action, encouraging political actors to influence crisis-related decision-making in the direction of their own political objectives and benefits. Irrespective of similar external pressures, we should thus expect distinctive approaches and effects of crisis management within different political contexts, depending on the specific constellations of actors, political interests and political ‘will and skill’ (Shonfield, 1965). Actors can, for example, refrain from particular containment measures should these run counter to their preferences and interests (Benz, 2004: 22). They might also enforce particularly drastic measures if this is rewarded by the voter and a laissez-faire strategy is punished. Actors might also use crises to make their mark in electoral campaigns or political competitions. Vote- and office-seeking strategies can be significant rationales in taking (or refraining from) specific mitigation measures.

Crises can be a welcome opportunity for political actors to demonstrate leadership and effective governance, and thus to win margins in political competitions. Major crises usually occur suddenly as ‘external shocks’, which open up ‘windows of opportunity’ (Kingdon, 1984, 1995; see also Baumgartner et al., 2014) for fundamental institutional changes in the system – for better or worse. However, such ‘windows of opportunity’ are usually only open for a short period of time, especially at the beginning of a crisis. In this phase, the initial aim is to develop and provide rapid answers for acute (overarching or sectoral) problems (e.g. food supply, health care capacities, etc.). Although one might assume that politics is weak or even ‘suspended’ in this initial phase (Boin and Lodge, 2016: 293), we suggest that depending on the institutional context conditions and situational circumstances, crises can also be used for playing ‘blame games’ (Hood et al., 2016) and opportunity management. This implies that institutional responses to a crisis are not always (or predominantly) the result of evidence-based decision-making and rational fact assessments, but rather due to strategically and deliberately using the situation for predefined preferences, contingently applying pre-existing solutions to new problems, and (re-)shifting blame. Relevant actors seize crises to get support and backing for changes and transformations that would not have been feasible in a non-crisis period.

In order to understand how the three sets of factors described earlier interact, the contributions provide insights into the course of the COVID-19 crisis, its time frame and specific circumstances, major events of crisis management, and contingencies (such as elections, campaigning, Brexit, international sports events like the Olympic games, etc.), which, in some countries, significantly diverted political attention away from the crisis. Furthermore, we know from the first empirical investigation that the national public (health) administrations showed different levels of preparedness. It became clear, for instance, that the availability (or lack) of sufficient health capacities, in terms of personnel, material, equipment, hospitals, beds, logistics and so on, was decisive for the initial crisis management. Therefore, the question of whether the crisis hit ‘unprepared terrain’ or whether there were standard operating procedures that government actors could draw on will be taken up. The contributions also look at the magnitude of the crisis, how badly different states were affected by it and which (overarching and sector-specific) problem-solving reserves were available to enable rapid resolution, especially in the initial phase. Finally, the studies presented here provide an overall assessment of the results and the lessons to be drawn from the country comparisons for future crisis management. They reveal the major strengths and weaknesses of the different approaches and make suggestions on what countries can learn from one another. The focus is on the first half of 2020, and therefore the period from the starting phase of crisis management (when the health emergency was prioritized in most countries) until the first early post-crisis phase (when economic rescue measures and exit from containment were on the agenda), which, time-wise, varies to some extent from country to country.

Cross-country comparison: crisis governance from a global perspective

This Special Issue takes a global comparative approach in presenting the COVID-19 pandemic governance in 14 countries from three continents representing (at least) six administrative traditions. The contributions highlight the country-specific circumstances and contingencies that have incentivized decision-makers to use the crisis (in different directions and scopes) for opportunity management, pushing political preferences and initiating institutional transformations. The aim is to reveal similarities and differences, convergences and divergences regarding these institutional responses, and choices taken by various stakeholders to cope with the pandemic from a global viewpoint, considering the varied institutional landscapes, governance capacities and administrative cultures. In addition, a transnational and multilateral perspective is adopted in order to capture the role of (regional and global) IOs, such as the World Health Organization (WHO), in managing the pandemic.

All countries selected for this Special Issue have been significantly affected by the COVID-19 crisis but pursued different paradigms and trajectories to manage it. The country selection was guided by the intention of covering and representing the highest possible variety of (clusters of) administrative traditions and cultures around the world to present a truly global analysis of COVID-19 ‘crisis management testing’, including the following administrative traditions (see Christensen et al., 2007; Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019; Painter and Peters, 2010):

Anglo-Saxon: UK, New Zealand, Australia

Federal Continental European: Germany

Napoleonic Continental European: France, Italy, Spain, Belgium¹

Eastern European: Hungary, Poland

Nordic: Sweden, Netherlands²

East Asian: China, Japan, South Korea

From a methodological perspective, the Special Issue combines most-different and most-similar case designs of comparison. Some contributions compare countries from fairly similar and some from distinctly different administrative cultures. Based on the most-similar case designs (e.g. Hungary/Poland and Australia/New Zealand), we can explore whether similar administrative traditions and path dependencies produce convergent strategies of crisis management, and, if so, to what extent this can be attributed to these common institutional context conditions, or, if not, which factors can explain the divergence. However, we have also deliberately included some most-different case studies (e.g. France/Germany/Sweden) to reveal the influence of diverging administrative cultures and state traditions on crisis reactions.

Starting off: context matters

Australia, New Zealand and the UK represent the Anglo-Saxon administrative model. However, while sharing this administrative cultural background, the three countries have their own distinctive institutional characteristics. Australia’s federal system, enshrined in a written constitution, is a primer for gravitation towards centralization and national unity in the face of common threats, alongside recognition of the legitimacy of sub-national policy variations and implementation practices – even to the point that it generates intergovernmental and bureaucratic conflicts (Carayannopoulos, 2018). In New Zealand’s unitary system, due to the absence of a written constitution to specify power-sharing with ‘lower’ levels of government, national decision-making power rests predominantly with the political executive, which is drawn from the ranks of the majority party or parties in the legislature – like the Australian system. This works as a primer for gravitation towards a more centralized response. In the politico-administrative system of the UK, also lacking a written constitution, the prerequisites for centralizing government, not just in the event of a crisis, are also in place. In fact, given the strong position of the executive within the British Westminster model, with its system of majoritarian democracy, (radical) policy changes are relatively easy to undertake. However, the strong civic culture tradition, within which differences between the state and the socio-economic sphere have not become very pronounced (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2017), as well as the devolution policy of recent decades, can be seen as particular challenges.

In recent decades, Italy, Spain, France and Belgium, part of the Napoleonic state tradition (Kuhlmann and Wollmann, 2019: 72, et seq.; Ongaro, 2008), have seen developments contributing to a radical change of some elements of this tradition – an evolution that has become relevant as a background for crisis management in these countries. The centralization of the state waned considerably in both Italy and France, though with different scope. In the case of France – well known for its unitary-centralized system, with a comprehensive, politically culture-rooted acceptance of (centralized) governmental regulatory authority and a powerful bureaucracy – sub-national governments, notably, on the regional and departmental levels, have acquired a number of new competencies over recent decades. However, French decentralization was consequently accompanied by a process of deconcentration, due to which the central state’s power in diverse policy fields – like health – has even increased. Italian Regioni, in turn, share decision capacity with the central government in sectors like health and civil protection, while they possess autonomy in the areas of economy, tourism and agriculture. Spain has a ‘quasi-federal’ nature with Comunidades Autónomas enjoying independent political and spending power. Since 2010, regional governments of both countries have become weaker than in previous decades due to financial and political factors. By contrast, in Belgium, the regions have become stronger, though they share competency for health policy with the federal/national level. Unsurprisingly, the fragmentation of competencies did hamper a quick response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The response in the highly decentralized Dutch system was different (slower and softer) due to higher levels of trust. Indeed, in the Netherlands, as well as Sweden, the culturally embedded high trust levels regarding the relation between citizens and public authorities provide an important explanation for the fact that compliance of citizens with the governments’ crisis-related measures was predominantly assured by recommendations. This similarity unfolded against relatively similar institutional backgrounds in the two countries. The Netherlands and Sweden are well known for their highly decentralized administrative systems and the strong position of local governments, which they share with Germany. However, Germany stands out for its federal structure, with the Länder having legislatures, executives (similar to the Belgian regions) and judiciaries of their own. Yet, Germany – in contrast to Sweden and the Netherlands, and in concert with Belgium and France – is not famous for a public ‘trust culture’, instead being marked by a culture of hierarchic subordination of society vis-a-vis the state.

Looking at Eastern Europe, Hungary and Poland – two countries with largely comparable historical experiences, traditions and socio-economic and state development – represent prime examples of ‘illiberal democracies’ characterized by the manipulation of democratic elections through diverse practices (hampering media access, keeping opposition candidates off the ballot, etc.) and executive aggrandizement. Historically, both in Poland and Hungary, the process of developing democratic institutions and public administration has been characterized by a delayed and incomplete capitalist and democratic development, though leading to a liberal consensus in the early post-transition period. However, since 2010 in Hungary and since 2015 in Poland, an ‘illiberal transition’ cumulatively weakened or even dismantled basic institutions.

Finally, regarding the East Asian countries represented in this Special Issue’s comparison, a mix of diverse institutional foundations and politico-administrative cultures prevail. South Korea and Japan are both characterized by centralism and strong government intervention in the economy, elite bureaucracy, and bureaucratic discretion (Ginsburg, 2001). Both countries are ranked very high in terms of administrative professionalism, measured by the degree of political influence in personnel management of civil servants (Suzuki and Demircioglu, 2019). Besides these similarities, there are marked differences regarding the political systems of the two countries that are crucial to understanding COVID-19 crisis management. In South Korea, with its presidential system, as a rule, the political leadership responds quickly to public sentiment, whereas in Japan, with its parliamentary system and indirect legitimization of the prime minister, this is not the case. While China’s non-competitive regime, unitary government, performance legitimacy and high citizen trust afforded strong political commitment, China’s crisis management experiences and capacities facilitated quick and effective coordination.

IOs, finally, are also bounded by their specific institutional and political context. The WHO, for instance, has become increasingly involved in containing global health crises in recent decades, without the means and tools from its member states. By contrast, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) enjoy much more ‘bureaucratic autonomy’ (Bauer and Ege, 2016). The European Union (EU) is somewhere in between as health is not a ‘European’ policy area, strictly speaking, except for coordination between member states. Much therefore depends on whether the mechanisms and resources that are in place are sufficient when a crisis suddenly occurs.

To sum up, we have seen that the institutional and cultural backgrounds of the countries studied here vary greatly. However, even in countries belonging to the same cluster of administrative systems, the institutional responses to the crisis have not been uniform and the scope of using the crisis as an opportunity for further policy shifts and reforms showed marked differences. Thus, although institutional and cultural starting conditions are important to understanding the general trajectory of crisis management, there are further factors to be considered, such as actor constellations, leadership and contingencies.

Responding to the crisis: governance and coordination

Australia and New Zealand (see Bromfield and McConnell, this volume) were primed towards governance mechanisms that would include New Public Management (NPM)-inspired roles for the private sector, as well as a whole-of-government type of integrated measures, including the 2017 Australian Government Crisis Management Framework (AGCMF) and the 2014 New Zealand Coordinated Incident Management System, relying heavily on the capacities and symbolism of public health care systems. Especially given the traditionally significant sub-national policy variation and implementation practices, the Australian response to COVID-19 has been something of a balancing act. In the case of New Zealand, the government’s reaction to COVID-19, in turn, closely paralleled a ‘normal’ top-down impetus. In the UK, the handling of the crisis illustrates the centralistic top-down approach of the British central government towards local authorities, which was not, however, underpinned by a proper and clear strategy (see Joyce, this volume).

Generally, within centralized crisis management structures, like France, governments can intervene more directly to push for countrywide uniform mitigation measures to be centrally imposed and controlled. This is what happened in the French case as a primary reaction to the outbreak of the pandemic. By contrast, within decentralized settings, like Germany or Sweden, less streamlined solutions often become apparent and are (at least partially) based on voluntary compliance by local and regional actors, often linked up to negotiations and coordinative efforts with other levels and resulting in less coherent solutions (see Kuhlmann, Hellström, Ramberg and Reiter, this volume). However, patterns of uniform decision-making with centralizing impetus may also become apparent in settings of cooperative federalism, such as in Germany, given that decisions are centrally coordinated to reach nationwide standards and make all sub-national actors comply. Whereas there was a broad consensus among all leading specialists and politicians in France and Germany that only with the help of more or less drastic containment measures would the pandemic be manageable and a crash down of the health system be avoidable, Swedish experts took a different stance on the problem and refrained from shutting down society and the economy, instead largely relying on the voluntary compliance of the population. Sweden and the Netherlands, though to a lesser degree, stood out from many other countries for their lack of severe legally binding containment measures. From that perspective, the Low Countries are remarkably opposite as a highly regionalized country like Belgium took a closed approach aimed at control, while in the Netherlands, measures were more voluntary and ‘common sense’ (or ‘intelligently’) framed (see Pattyn, Matthys and Van Hecke, this volume). In both countries, however, coordination mechanisms did not seem to work as expected, impeding a more coherent response to COVID-19.

In Italy and Spain (see Galli and Parrado, this volume), the institutional framework and the interactions between national and regional authorities posed considerable national dissimilarities despite having produced similar short-term outcomes. In both countries, regions are important political actors, often of national relevance, and they share responsibilities with central governments as regards public health issues. Although intergovernmental arenas could have grown the role of regions as veto players, vetoes did not materialize at first because of the centrality of the time factor, the uncertainty of decision outcomes, the transboundary dimensions of the crisis and the opportunity to place all responsibility on the central government.

Regarding Hungary and Poland (see Hajnal, Jeziorska and Kovács, this volume), in terms of structural conditions enabling and constraining key actors’ agency, the COVID-19 crisis found the two countries in significantly different starting conditions. The Hungarian governing party has been in office for three consecutive terms and, by relying on its long-term supermajority, has been able to fundamentally redesign the institutional landscape of the country to a practically unlimited extent, including the constitutional foundations of the state. At the same time, the structural conditions confronting Poland’s regime seem to have constrained the illiberal push in markedly stronger and more multifarious ways as the “Law and Justice” party (PiS) lost the majority in the Senate in the autumn of 2019 to opposition parties. Therefore, it does not have enough power to change the constitution or undertake broad-scope institutional redesign, as was the case in Hungary.

In the East Asian countries, past experiences or current challenges seem to have been more important for structuring crisis governance than institutional factors (see Moon, Park, Suzuki and Sakuwa, this volume). The South Korean government has drawn important policy lessons from the painful experience with the MERS coronavirus (Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome), a strong trigger for strengthening its institutional capacities, building collaborative partnership with local governments and private organizations, and establishing effective procedures for testing, tracing and treating potential and confirmed cases (Moon, 2020). Therefore, it reacted very swiftly due to the president’s strong leadership and the central role played by the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). In the case of Japan, the government decided to set up the Novel Coronavirus Response Headquarters (NCRH) led by Prime Minister Abe by the end of January, when Japan had 11 cumulative confirmed cases. Contrasting this structural activism, the Japanese government initially remained somewhat passive and cautious in its responses to the crisis as the Abe administration was concerned about the potential impact of COVID-19 on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Also, its homogeneous bureaucratic system seemed to be less well-equipped to deal with such a crisis. The difference in policy positions and approaches of the two countries appears to have affected changes in public trust in government. Citizen trust and satisfaction in Korea has stayed high, whereas the approval rating for the Abe administration has declined. In China, strategic leadership made use of the crisis to demonstrate responsible leadership and push forward a grand reform agenda (see Jing, this volume). The nature and functioning of these pro-success factors are inherently rooted in the unique Chinese political party context. The responses were decisive and called a ‘people’s war’ against the virus under the unified leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Political will was undoubted and all public and private sector actors were mobilized in policy implementation.

The WHO’s complex and decentralized governance structure also contributed to the challenges of coping with the COVID-19 crisis, having no ability to impose its decisions on its members. By contrast, the IMF and WB could easily unfold their contingency plans as they were not dependent on their member states for deciding about what urgently needed to be done in the area of international financial and economic affairs (see Van Hecke, Fuhr and Wolfs, this volume). The EU, interestingly, was at the outset of COVID-19, neither unprepared nor without appropriate tools. However, its competent agency failed to react in time and to alarm the European Commission and the member states. Consequently, the EU was driven into a defensive position in the first phase of the crisis. Later on, it made serious efforts to take back control and play a more decisive role in the management of the crisis.

Summing up, it seems that we see patterns of management-driven (e.g. Australia), trust-driven (e.g. Sweden), hierarchy-driven (e.g. France), multi-level accountability-driven (e.g. Italy and Spain) and illiberal-driven (e.g. Hungary) mechanisms of crisis governance. These ‘leads’ are supported by the given structural features, such as centralized legal frames, different federal legal frames (more polarized versus more cooperative) and involving more or less regions and local governments. Starting from these different structural positions and settings, stakeholders in the countries scrutinized here have used the crisis as a window of opportunity in different directions and to varying degrees. Furthermore, experts’ knowledge was used not only as professional advice to underpin governments’ responses to the crisis, but also to create legitimacy and obtain the population’s support regarding the decisions and measures taken.

Seizing the day: opportunity management in the COVID-19 pandemic

In Australia, the Morrison-led crisis governance of COVID-19 pursued an evidence-informed, though politically filtered, approach of mitigation, based on ‘flattening the curve’ and introducing increasingly restrictive measures when necessary. Some of these measures, particularly the increased welfare payments, run against the grain of a conservative government more inclined to curbing public expenditure and welfare spending. While the first half of 2020 were still ‘early days’, the near wipeout of the virus has demonstrated reformist inclinations that conform to past precedent, that is, partly using the opportunities afforded by crises to reinforce and even accelerate existing trends. In New Zealand, as the first signs of COVID-19 arrived in early 2020, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was leader of the Labour government in a coalition with the New Zealand First party. New Zealand’s response to COVID-19 was, first and foremost, oriented towards a quick and effective response to the pandemic threat. Therefore, the government’s reaction evolved quickly into an ‘elimination’ strategy (Baker et al., 2020), strongly emphasizing ambitious early intervention, including ‘lockdown’ stay-at-home measures, the closure of schools and universities, the closure of non-essential businesses, the rationing of supplies and severe travel restrictions. The UK government’s decision-making processes regarding COVID-19 pandemic management were not inclusive and there was friction with government leaders in devolved administrations, cities and local councils. In fact, the Prime Minister’s capabilities of managing the crisis were criticized by many for being inconsistent as the initial strategy of propagating the idea of herd immunity was later replaced by a lockdown strategy. There was also a strong presence of reputation management in the government approach to communications. This approach failed standards of clarity, responsiveness to public concerns and transparency. Overall, British governance of the COVID-19 pandemic could be described as ‘muddling through’ (see Joyce, this volume).

In France and Germany, a stop-and-go pattern, ruptures and reversals, full stop and restart, and strong support by the population at the beginning of the pandemic marked the process of problem-solving. Sweden, by contrast, showed more cautiousness, thoughtfulness and continuity in its strategy of coping with the pandemic threat, as well as more stable and even increasing support for the containment strategy over time. In Germany, the originally astonishingly consensual course of the government was increasingly questioned by different Länder minister presidents, who saw the crisis as a good opportunity for sharpening their own political profiles. Policymakers seized the opportunity not only to reshuffle powers in the institutional macro-setting, but also to push administrative modernization, specifically the digitalization of public administration. Similar to France, Belgium represents a prime example of centrally driven uniform bureaucratic crisis management, leading – after a politically promising start – to popular refusal and a notable reduction in the governing actors’ chances for active opportunity management. This is especially striking since the country was in need of an effective government. COVID-19 hit Belgium particularly hard but did not lead to a breakthrough in its long government formation process. In the Netherlands, the government, especially Prime Minister Mark Rutte, was ‘smart’ enough to capitalize on the crisis management by baptizing the Dutch response as an ‘intelligent lockdown’.

Contrasting with the German Länder, in Italy, the regions did not become effective veto players and central government managed to set nationwide policies independently, especially during the first three months. During veto situations, regional requests were uneven, or discordant, and this may have favoured the mediating and decision-making role of the government. In the early stages, the call for national unity by the President of the Republic played a fundamental role. Central government, at least during the first six months, has been more effective in opportunity management than the regions.

In Spain, the veto situations have yielded an influential effect in two intertwined areas: the relations between the executive and the legislature regarding the maintenance of emergency rules and the intergovernmental system. The real veto took place in the parliamentary negotiations to extend the state of alarm and this veto was made more effective by regionalist parties that could not play a significant collaborative governance role with the central government in intergovernmental forums during the pandemic. Once the veto was effective in forcing the central government to share responsibility on decision-making about the confinement with the regions, some regional authorities backed the central government up and requested not to go so fast.

In Hungary, the Prime Minister seems to have been able to secure continued and full control over his party and government, enabling him to avoid difficult bargains, compromises or delays. In contrast, the illiberal elite in Poland is much less controllable and homogeneous. PiS leader Kaczyński, unlike Prime Minister Orbán, is not able to exert full control over different groupings within the governing elite. It is reasonable to interpret this difference as resulting in the fact that whereas the Hungarian illiberal regime was able to actively use the entire repertoire available to it, the Polish illiberal regime, because of its limited internal ability to act, was unable to exploit even the more modest structural opportunities available to it.

As for South Korea and Japan, despite similarities in their bureaucratic systems and central structures, they differed quite strongly in their policy responses to COVID-19. The South Korean government, because of painful but valuable learning from past experiences of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and MERS, appeared to be better prepared to respond to COVID-19 in an agile and adaptive way (Lee et al., 2020; Moon, 2020). The Japanese government, in contrast, because of its concern about potential impact on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, was relatively passive and cautious, with its policy decisions often lacking clear leadership. Despite these differences, the number of deaths related to COVID-19 per million inhabitants has been comparable so far. It therefore remains to be seen to what extent other factors, particularly behavioural patterns, such as citizens’ self-restraint, strict adherence to social norms and public hygiene, are explicative for the overall pandemic outcomes of these South Asian states as compared to European countries. In China, the centralized intergovernmental system quickly conveyed a political commitment to the brim of the system. High citizen trust figures provided further social legitimation for tough epidemic control. The past economic performance of the Chinese government, in combination with a tradition of strong government, has sustained high citizen trust statistics. Antivirus measures were largely based on these culturally embedded high trust levels, while, at the same time, implementation relied on limiting individual freedom and onerous compliance.

The WHO’s structural weaknesses and its decentralized governance structure were not compensated for by its leadership to rise above these limitations and ensure its member states were kept in step. The disengagement of the US and the assertiveness of China further complicated the WHO’s capabilities to strengthen its own position and demonstrate its indispensability in a global pandemic. International financial institutions like the IMF and WB, by contrast, could clearly demonstrate why they ‘have been created for situations like this’ (Georgieva, 2020). The EU, in turn, was criticized for being invisible, if not irrelevant, during the COVID-19 crisis as member states like Italy and Spain complained about the lack of solidarity. Many member states reacted with predominantly national policies, leading to their responses being labelled as ‘coronationalism’ (Bouckaert et al., 2020). In the course of the first wave of the pandemic, however, the EU leadership did its best to turn this crisis into an opportunity, in other words, to try to strengthen its position vis-a-vis the member states.

Conclusion

This Special Issue analyzes crisis governance in the first semester (January–June 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic from a cross-country comparative perspective, taking a global approach. By systematically looking at the institutional conditions, administrative traditions and relevant actor constellations as regards crisis management, the various country studies discuss similarities and differences in crisis responses and patterns of opportunity management. These different dynamics in managing the crisis can hardly be explained by fundamental differences in knowledge regarding the properties of the virus, but rather – drawing on institutionalist theories – by the countries’ traditional governance practices and historically embedded administrative cultures. Furthermore, the organization of crisis management matters; however, here, again, this does not entirely explain the variance that is analyzed in this Special Issue. One must also take into account actor strategies, interest constellations and the fact that the opportunities for actors to use the crisis differ among the countries. From the comparative analyses it becomes very clear that opportunity management played out differently in the countries under scrutiny and the threat of the virus created opportunities for different groups to challenge existing power structures. Therefore, the country analyses of this Special Issue will also address the question of who defines the opportunities and which factors account for the direction and extent of opportunity management in a given country context. Attention will be given to, among other things, the leadership in power and the role of various groups in society seeking change to mobilize and strengthen their demands.

Overall, the country studies have revealed that opportunity management was not primarily the result of evidence-based assessments or systematic crisis analyses, but reflects policymakers’ ad hoc attempts to strengthen their institutional position, to shift powers in the multi-level system and/or to gain additional influence. Countries all over the world, as well as IOs, have tried to use the crisis as a political and/or power-related window of opportunity. Opportunity management, though, did not succeed everywhere. On the one hand, the country analyses reveal that politics matters: the question of whether governments enjoy a strong position in the domestic context or have a rather contested and weak standing in the national setting plays an important role for the scope and success of crisis-related opportunity management. In this context, the power of (sub-national) veto players is also relevant as these might limit national governments’ scope of action and prevent them from seizing the momentum for change, while at the international level, member states hold a crucial position that largely determines the effectiveness of IOs in crisis management. On the other hand, the cultural and institutional background can provide a more or less enabling environment for opportunity management in crisis situations. Centralistic structures and hierarchic traditions seem to make it easier than federal/regionalist contexts, where potentially conflicting strategies emerge and (as in Germany) regionally divergent patterns of opportunity management prevail. The higher the complexity of systems – with existing veto powers, multi-level tensions and possible contingencies of additional major problems – the more difficult is singular leadership regarding opportunity management. The lower the complexity of systems, the lower the existing tensions and the lower presence of additional major problems, the higher the chances of a leadership with explicit, fast and strong strategies of change – for the better or the worse.

Footnotes

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Sabine Kuhlmann

Geert Bouckaert

Davide Galli

Renate Reiter

Steven Van Hecke

Notes

Sabine Kuhlmann is Professor of Public Administration and Organization at the University of Potsdam, Germany, and holder of the Hedda Andersson Chair at Lund University, Sweden. She is also the Vice-President for Western Europe of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, USA. Furthermore, she serves as the Vice-Chair of the German National Regulatory Control Council at the German Federal Chancellery. She has published in, among others, Public Administration Review, Public Management Review, International Review of Administrative Sciences and Local Government Studies. One recent book (co-authored with Hellmut Wollmann) is Introduction to Comparative Public Administration (Edward Elgar, 2014; 2nd edn, 2019).

Geert Bouckaert is Professor of Public Management at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium. He is past-president of the European Group for Public Administration and of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences. He is a member of the UN Committee of Experts of Public Administration (CEPA).

Davide Galli is Associate Professor of Management at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy. His research focuses on performance management and reporting in public and private organizations.

Renate Reiter is Senior Fellow at the Department of Political Sciences at the FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany. She specializes in comparative public policy and, in particular, (local) social policy studies from a comparative perspective. Since April 2011, she has been co-chair of the local political research study group of the German Association of Political Sciences. Her most recent publication is ‘Is quality a driver of the regulatory welfare state? Policies for health services in Germany and France’, The Annals of the American Society of Political and Social Sciences 691(September 2020): 174–188.

Steven Van Hecke is Associate Professor in Comparative and EU Politics at the KU Leuven Public Governance Institute, Belgium. His research focuses on party politics, EU governance and European integration history. He has published in, among others, Acta Politica, Journal of Common Market Studies, European Politics and Society, Journal of European Public Policy, Regional and Federal Studies and Politics and Governance.

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