ArticleHealth policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands)2022
Centralizing and decentralizing governance in the COVID-19 pandemic: The politics of credit and blame.
Article in Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 88 citations in OpenAlex.
- "No data, no problem"? A critical reflection of health monitoring systems and equity during COVID-19 in Finland.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Sweden's public health response to COVID-19: a qualitative study building on a realist approach.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Exploring the health system response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Cochabamba, Bolivia: a qualitative study with policymakers and managers.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Exploring district implementation of national guidelines and maintenance of essential health services during the COVID-19 pandemic in Uganda.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Launching Austria's One Health network: paving the way for transdisciplinary collaborations.One health outlook · 2024Article
- Singapore's COVID-19 crisis decision-making through centralization, legitimacy, and agility: an empirical analysis.The Lancet regional health. Western Pacific · 2024Article
- What makes health systems resilient? An analytical framework drawing on European learnings from the COVID-19 pandemic based on a multitiered approach.BMJ public health · 2024Article
- The Israeli health system's rapid responses during the COVID-19 pandemic.Israel journal of health policy research · 2024Article
- Multi-sectoral collaborations in selected countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region: assessment, enablers and missed opportunities from the COVID-19 pandemic response.Health research policy and systems · 2024Article
- Examining universal access to acute hospital care in Ireland during the first three months of COVID-19: Lessons from the policy process.HRB open research · 2024Article
- New Public Management, Austerity, and the Alienation of the Medical Profession in France.Journal of healthcare leadership · 2024Article
- Strategies to improve the care of older adults 50 years and above living with HIV in Uganda.AIDS research and therapy · 2023Article
- The COVID-19 pandemic posed many dilemmas for policymakers, which sometimes resulted in unprecedented decision-making.Israel journal of health policy research · 2023Article
- Power and politics in a pandemic: Insights from Finnish health system leaders during COVID-19.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Article
- Institutional quality and COVID-19 vaccination: does decentralization matter?Letters in spatial and resource sciences · 2023Article
- Improving the response to future pandemics requires an improved understanding of the role played by institutions, politics, organization, and governance.PLOS global public health · 2023Article
- SDG5 "Gender Equality" and the COVID-19 pandemic: A rapid assessment of health system responses in selected upper-middle and high-income countries.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Relationship of political ideology of US federal and state elected officials and key COVID pandemic outcomes following vaccine rollout to adults: April 2021-March 2022.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2022Article
- Investigating the influence of institutions, politics, organizations, and governance on the COVID-19 response in British Columbia, Canada: a jurisdictional case study protocol.Health research policy and systems · 2022Article
- Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.Health policy (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
COVID-19 led to significant and dynamic shifts in power relations within and between governments, teaching us how governments make health policies and how health crises affect government. We focus on centralization and decentralization within and between governments: within government, meaning the extent to which the head of government controls policy; and between governments, meaning the extent to which the central government pre-empts or controls local and regional government. Political science literature suggests that shifting patterns of centralization and decentralization can be explained by leading politicians' efforts to gain credit for popular actions and outcomes and deflect blame for unpopular ones. We test this hypothesis in two ways: by coding the Health Systems Response Monitor's data on government responses, and through case studies of the governance of COVID-19 in Austria, Czechia and France. We find that credit and blame do substantially explain the timing and direction of changes in centralization and decentralization. In the first wave, spring 2020, heads of government centralized and raised their profile in order to gain credit for decisive action, but they subsequently tried to decentralize in order to avoid blame for repeated restrictions on life or surges of infection. These findings should shape advice on governance for pandemic response.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.