Relevance, Quality, and Expedience: Political Science Responds to COVID-19: Comparing and Explaining Policy Reactions and Political Consequences

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Session Description

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented shock to democratic political systems, but the manner in which democracies have responded have been markedly different. This panel includes papers that seek to explain how institutional and political factors have shaped the way in which the crisis has been defined and handled by governments; that explain how democratic publics have responded to crisis measures; and that inquire into the short-term and longer-term consequences of crisis politics for the quality of democracy. Paper 1 focuses on the explanatory power of the federal versus unitary distinction in explaining public policy responses to the crisis. Paper 2 focuses on the politics of social distancing and asks how people have complied with lockdown politics. Paper 3 examines how crisis politics have affected trust in government across a range of European and North democracies. Paper 4 assesses the democratic implications of public health measures against COVID-19 for 30 established democracies.

All four papers that make up the panel draw on original data that has been collected since the onset of the pandemic; have a strong comparative orientation; and involve teams of authors with senior and early career scholars. The papers will form part of a special issue of the journal West European Politics that is expected to be published in the spring of 2021.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Individual Presentations

• Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Federal vs. Unitary States - Tim Buthe, Technical University of Munich (TUM); Joan Barcelo, New York University Abu Dhabi; Paula Daniela Ganga, Columbia University; Allison Spencer Hartnett, University of Southern California; Cindy Cheng, Technical University of Munich; Luca Elias Messerschmidt, TUM School of Governance; Robert Kubinec, Princeton University

• The Politics of Social Distancing - Ben William Ansell, University of Oxford; Asli Cansunar, University of Washington; Mads Andreas Elkjaer, University of Oxford

• Rally-around-the-flag: The Corona Crisis and Trust in Government - Sylvia Kritzinger, Institut für Höhere Studien; Romain Lachat, Sciences Po; Julia Partheymüller, University of Vienna; Carolina Plescia, University of Vienna

• Implications of Covid-19 Public Health Measures in Established Democracies - Tarik Abou-Chadi, University of Zurich; Daniel Kubler, University of Zurich; Lucas Leemann, University of Zurich; Romale Lovelace; Sarah Engler, University of Zurich; Palmo Brunner, University of Zurich

Chair

• Klaus H. Goetz University of Munich

Discussants

• Andrea Louise Campbell Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen University of Copenhagen