Explaining Subnational Responses to COVID-19 in Brazil, Mexico, and the U.S.

• In Event: Civil Society and Subnational Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Americas

Abstract

What explains the widely varied policy responses to Covid-19 inside federal countries? This study shows that subnational variation in policy coordination and stringency in federations is mainly driven not by epidemiological, demographic and socioeconomic forces but by political factors, especially partisanship and intergovernmental power struggles. With a combination of statistical analysis and qualitative case studies of state-level policies in Brazil, Mexico and the United States, the study finds that subnational policy responses to the pandemic are largely a function of partisanship and the politically determined balance of power between presidents and state governors.

Authors

• Cyril Bennouna

• Agustina Giraudy, American University

• Eduardo Moncada, Barnard College, Columbia University

• Richard O. Snyder, Brown University

• Paul Franz Testa, Brown University

• Eva Rios, Brown University