Policy integration, problem-solving, and the coronavirus disease crisis: lessons for policy design

The coronavirus disease pandemic has exposed differences in the capacity of governments around the world to integrate and coordinate different policy instruments into a coherent response. In this article, we conceptualize and empirically examine policy integration in responses to the coronavirus disease crisis in 35 countries. We then discuss how the interplay between restrictions, health protection, and economic policy has been articulated between, on the one hand, a policy design based on the complementarity of pro-public health and pro-economy measures, implying an integrated response, and, on the other, a policy design based on the perception of an inherent trade-off between the two. Finally, we discuss three implications from our analysis of policy integration against the coronavirus disease crisis for the post-COVID state: (a) the normalization and adaptation of integrated crisis responses; (b) the possible acceleration and “catching up” of problem-solving capacity as governments may use the crisis as an instance to put into place new social policies; and (c) policy integration as an accelerator of policy complexity and resistance against technocracy in the post-COVID state.

What has happened and what has not happened due to the coronavirus disease pandemic: a systemic perspective on policy change

The societal and policy transformations associated with the coronavirus disease pandemic are currently subject of intense academic debate. In this paper, we contribute to this debate by adopting a systemic perspective on policy change, shedding light on the hidden and indirect crisis effects. Based on a comprehensive analysis of policy agenda developments in Germany, we find that the pandemic led to profound shifts in political attention across policy areas. We demonstrate that these agenda gains and losses per policy area vary by the extent to which the respective areas can be presented as relevant in managing the coronavirus disease crisis and its repercussions. Moreover, relying on the analysis of past four economic crises, we also find that there is limited potential for catching up dynamics after the crisis is over. Policy areas that lost agenda share during crisis are unlikely to make up for these losses by strong attention gains once the crisis is over. Crises have hence substantial, long-term and so far, neglected effects on policymaking in modern democracies.

From crisis to reform? Exploring three post-COVID pathways

Crises are often viewed as catalysts for change. The coronavirus disease crisis is no exception. In many policy sectors, proponents of reform see this global crisis both as a justification and an enabler of necessary change. Policy scholars have paid ample attention to this crisis-reform thesis. Empirical research suggests that these proponents of crisis-induced change should not be too optimistic. The question remains why some crises give rise to reform whereas so many others do not. This paper focuses on one particular factor that crisis researchers have identified as important. Crisis research suggests that the outcome of the meaning-making process—the efforts to impose a dominant frame on a population—shapes the prospects of postcrisis change. The paper offers three ideal-typical framing scripts, which researchers can use to study postcrisis trajectories.

Re-thinking the coronavirus pandemic as a policy punctuation: COVID-19 as a path-clearing policy accelerator

This article joins with others in this special issue to examine the evolution of our understanding of how the coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic impacted policy ideas and routines across a wide variety of sectors of government activity. Did policy ideas and routines transform as a result of the pandemic or were they merely a continuation of the status quo ante? If they did transform, are the transformations temporary in nature or likely to lead to significant, deep and permanent reform to existing policy paths and trajectories? As this article sets out, the literature on policy punctuations has evolved and helps us understand the impact of COVID-19 on policy-making but tends to conflate several distinct aspects of path trajectories and deviations under the general concept of “critical junctures” which muddy reflections and findings. Once the different possible types of punctuations have been clarified, however, the result is a set of concepts related to path creation and disruption—especially that of “path clearing”—which are better able to provide an explanation of the kinds of policy change to be expected to result from the impact of events such as the 2019 coronavirus pandemic.