March 2020 – JEPP Online

Global Crisis: Policy Responses to COVID-19

31st March 202031st March 2020JEPP Online

Call for Papers Proposals

Allan McConnell, University of Sydney; Alastair Stark, University of Queensland (Special Issue Guest Editors)

For a special edition of the Journal of European Public Policy, we invite proposals for papers that explore the policy responses that have addressed the COVID-19 crisis. This special issue will seek to deliver insights into the nature and the effectiveness of national and/or international crisis responses to the disease through the application of public policy, governance and crisis management perspectives.

COVID-19 is a highly transmittable and potentially fatal coronavirus. The virus originated in Wuhan in China in December 2019. By late March 2020, there were over 720,000 cases world-wide in 177 countries and regions, with the number of cases escalating on a daily basis. In this short time span, the virus has created a global public health crisis that is unprecedented in living memory. Governments throughout the world have transformed rapidly into a ‘war time-like’ crisis-mode, attempting to diagnose, mitigate and suppress the virus, as well as moderate the cascading effects of disease control on the economy, healthcare systems and vulnerable populations. For millions of individual citizens, particularly those who are highly vulnerable physically, economically, and socially, we are witnessing extraordinary levels of public fear and anxiety. Response measures by governments facing unprecedented stress, have included travel bans, curfews, lock-downs, school closures and emergency budget stimuli and financial aid packages.

The scope of potential contributions is enormous, but we particularly welcome contributions which address responses to COVID-19 using theories, concepts and frameworks that are embedded within the discipline of public policy. Possible areas for empirical analysis are identified below, but we would welcome proposals that seek to examine any aspect of governmental responses to COVID-19 either in individual countries, or via comparative analysis/multi-country illustrations. Response includes pre-emptive responses, as well as responses in the acute stage. Potential themes include but are not limited to:

Warning signs, anticipation and pandemic preparedness e.g. agenda/institutional/political biases filtering out potential threat of COVID-19, contingency planning based on prior experience (SARS, MERS, Ebola), training/exercises, early interventions or lack thereof) and strategic approaches (such as Singapore/South Korea, US).

The nature of COVID-19 as a policy challenge e.g. sensemaking of the threat(s) involved in the crisis; ramping up of resources; addressing transboundary threats and spill-over effects across a variety of policy sub-systems; COVID-19 as a super wicked policy problem.

Policy design and decision making under crisis conditions e.g. decision making under high threat conditions and extreme uncertainty; moral and ethical issues in decision making; the nature of policy tools for COVID-19 crisis management.

Policy implementation and street-level behaviour e.g. the gap between central policy objectives and local reality; the effectiveness of policy tools on the ground; contingent policy formulation at the front-line.

Evaluation, learning and accountability e.g. historical lessons ignored/used in COVID-19; intra-crisis learning during the emergency; inter-country learning and mimicry across borders; evaluating response measures prospectively and retrospectively; the politics of post-crisis accountability.

Narratives, language and symbolic policy output e.g. crisis communication and the role of persuasion in relation to policy measures such as social distancing and panic buying; the role or narratives and metaphors – from war and identity to trajectories and resilience.

Institutions and governance e.g. the role of emergency powers, inter-governmental and inter-organisational coordination; national policy styles and crisis behaviour; the role of governance traditions during crises.

Political leadership e.g. leadership personality types and behaviour (such as Trump, Johnson, Merkel, Varadkar); crisis leadership challenges; leadership strategies and their effectiveness.

Expressions of interest consisting of a title, author(s) names and affiliation, and a short abstract (no more than 300 words) should be sent to allan.mcconnell@sydney.edu.au and alastair.stark@uq.edu.au by 1st June 2020. Successful authors should have a full article draft by 18 September 2020 with final submissions expected by 27 November 2020 (8,000 words maximum, including all figures, tables and references). All other inquiries ashould be sent to allan.mcconnell@sydney.edu.au and alastair.stark@uq.edu.au.

No match made in heaven: Parliamentary sovereignty, EU over-constitutionalization and Brexit

27th March 2020JEPP Online

Susanna K. Schmidt (University of Bremen, photo credit: Lukas Klose)

The British electorate’s choice to leave the EU has been tied to a lack of European identity among the British public, high unemployment rates in some areas of the United Kingdom, as well as voters’ education and income. In her article “No match made in heaven: Parliamentary sovereignty, EU over-constitutionalization and Brexit” published as part of Journal of European Public Policy’s special issue on “The Brexit Policy Fiasco”, Susanne Schmidt argues that existing accounts explaining the Brexit referendum overlooked an important institutional factor. Susanne argues that the EU’s political system, riding on integration through European law interpreted and enforced by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), has always stood in stark contrast to the United Kingdom’s polity, with strong roots of parliamentary sovereignty and majoritarian decision-making. Focusing on one of the most politicized policy-fields in the context of the Brexit decision, Susanne traces how the CJEU’s case law gradually constitutionalised the EU’s policy-making on intra-EU migration, imposing limits on Member States’ majoritarian decision-making. Ironically, in light of its common-law tradition the United Kingdom’s administration ranked among the most effective compliers with EU law, magnifying the tension between EU law’s constraints on political decision-makers and the United Kingdom’s tradition of parliamentary sovereignty. Susanne’s analysis shows that recognizing the institutional mismatch between the EU’s and British political systems “is necessary to understand why ‘taking back control’ could resonate so easily with British voters.”

The threat of social decline: income inequality and radical right support radical right support

27th March 2020JEPP Online

Sarah Engler (University of Zurich) & David Weisstanner (University of Oxford)

Recent research has sought to identify the drivers of the rise of radical right parties (RRPs) across Western democracies. Several observers point out that RRPs appeal to those who feel left behind in the course of globalisation, suggesting a link between rising income inequality and a surge in RRPs’ electoral prowess. In their article “The threat of social decline: income inequality and radical right support radical right support” recognized with the CES/JEPP Political Economy and Welfare Best Paper Prize 2019, Sarah Engler and David Weisstanner offer a novel perspective on the complex relationship between income inequality and voters’ support for RRPs. Increasingly unequal societies not only see a larger share of voters actually experience relative deprivation, voters higher up in the hierarchy also fear a steeper social decline. Sarah and David provide evidence from 14 OECD countries between 1987 and 2017 suggesting that RRPs’ stance against globalisation and rhetoric pitting natives against immigrants resonates particularly with middle-income workers concerned about protecting their status in the social hierarchy. Their analysis emphasizes the importance of looking beyond indicators of voters’ experience of actual decline, as “the voting behaviour of individuals higher up in the social hierarchy is even more crucial to understanding how income inequality fuels RRP support.”

Austerity and the path of least resistance: how fiscal consolidations crowd out long-term investments

26th March 2020JEPP Online

In the aftermath of economic crises and recession, fiscal austerity has been the measure of choice across many OECD countries. Against the backdrop of counter-cyclical spending and costly bailouts, governments need to make tough choices to keep their budget sheets balanced. In his article “Austerity and the path of least resistance: how fiscal consolidations crowd out long-term investments” published in the Journal of European Public Policy, Olivier Jacques analyses how governments choose which types of state expenditure fall victim to fiscal austerity. Drawing on budget data from 17 OECD countries between 1980 and 2014, Olivier shows that governments implementing fiscal austerity programmes tend to protect policies that enjoy broad support among their constituencies, such as health care expenditures and pensions. On the flipside, expenditures delivering societal benefits exclusively in the future, including investments into infrastructure as well as research and development, are more likely to be scaled back in the course of fiscal austerity programmes. Olivier warns that governments’ tendencies to prioritize short-term benefits over policies producing long-term gains “reduces the proportion of public investments that would benefit future generations, generating concerns about intergenerational equity.”