Arjen Boin - Governing the Pandemic : The Politics of Navigating a Mega-Crisis

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For long-time students of crisis management, COVID-19 is the big onethe scary Future Crisis so often announced and discussed in the literature: truly global, arriving slowly and lasting for a very long time, with devastating impacts. COVID-19 was the ultimate stress test for plans and preparations, for political and administrative leadership, for societal and institutional resilience.

In this book, we wield the tools of crisis studies to understand and explain the dynamics of governmental and societal responses during the first twelve months of this crisis. This is not a detailed case study with timelines and statistics. Our focus is on how governments, particularly those of the advanced economies (that we are most familiar with) have responded to the pandemic, to the complex, transboundary multi-crises it has generated, and the ways publics reacted to the various responses.

To write a book about COVID-19 while it is still unfolding is an inherently premature endeavour. The pandemic is still with us. The long shadow it will cast on our societies is only beginning to form. Much about what has happened behind the scenes of political decision-making and public sector performance remains unknown. It is therefore inevitable that some of our findings and interpretations in this book will need to be nuanced or revised as new information emerges.

Yet, we think it is important to take a good lookfrom the balconyat the governance of this crisis while it is unfolding. Governments and scholars cannot afford to begin the work of reflecting and learning until this crisis is truly over, which may be years from now. Future crises are in the making. We need to get ready. We need to learn what we can, as soon as we can. This book is intended to provide fuel for such a discussion.

We offer a synthesis of what we believe to be the four main challenges that all governments face in a crisis of this magnitude: they must make sense of a highly uncertain and dynamic threat; get things done in the face of collective action problems; craft credible narratives about deeply unsettling events; and work towards closure of a crisis that has the potential of destabilizing our societies and their political systems. In the final chapter, we offer some preliminary directions for the deep institutional learning required to make our communities and our governance systems more resilient when the next big one comes along.

We have made liberal use of the quick-response analyses published by social science colleagues around the world. Together, they covered most all dimensions of the responses of governments, political systems and societies. These scholars have provided a strong evidence base, while addressing a swathe of crisis management and public governance themes. We thankfully build on this body of work.

We are particularly thankful to our research assistants, Marte Luesink and Friso Welten, who have done excellent work (ranging from desk research to the final commas in the bibliography).