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Government Capacity, Societal Trust or Party Preferences? What Accounts for the Variety of National Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe?

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  • Toshkov, Dimiter
  • Yesilkagit, Kutsal
  • Carroll, Brendan

Abstract

European states responded to the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 with a variety of public policy measures. Governments across the continent acted more or less swiftly to close down schools, restrict arrival into their countries and travel within their territories, ban public meetings, impose local and national lockdowns, declare states of emergency and pass other emergency measures. Importantly, both the mix of policy tools as well as the speed with which they were enacted differed significantly even within the member states of the European Union. In this article we ask what can account for this variation in policy responses, and we identify a number of factors related to institutions, general governance and specific health-sector related capacities, societal trust, government type, and party preferences as possible determinants. Using multivariate regression and survival analysis, we model the speed with which school closures, national lockdowns and states of emergency were announced. The models suggest a number of significant and often counterintuitive relationships: we find that more centralized countries with lower government effectiveness, freedom and societal trust, but with separate ministries of health and health ministers with medical background acted faster and more decisively. These results are important in light of the large positive effects early policy responses likely had on managing the impact of the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Toshkov, Dimiter & Yesilkagit, Kutsal & Carroll, Brendan, 2020. "Government Capacity, Societal Trust or Party Preferences? What Accounts for the Variety of National Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Europe?," OSF Preprints 7chpu, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7chpu
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/7chpu
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    1. Vincenzo Alfano & Salvatore Ercolano, 2022. "Stay at Home! Governance Quality and Effectiveness of Lockdown," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 101-123, January.
    2. Munirul H. Nabin & Mohammad Tarequl Hasan Chowdhury & Sukanto Bhattacharya, 2021. "It matters to be in good hands: the relationship between good governance and pandemic spread inferred from cross-country COVID-19 data," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    3. González-Bustamante, Bastián, 2021. "Evolution and early government responses to COVID-19 in South America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    4. Löblová, Olga & Rone, Julia & Borbáth, Endre, 2021. "COVID-19 in Central and Eastern Europe: Focus on Czechia, Hungary, and Bulgaria," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, pages 413-435.
    5. Leininger, Julia & von Schiller, Armin & Strupat, Christoph & Malerba, Daniele, 2022. "Policy responses to COVID-19: Why social cohesion and social protection matter in Africa," IDOS Discussion Papers 20/2022, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS).

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