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Responding to COVID‐19: The Case of Spain
Author(s) -
Royo Sebastián
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
european policy analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.558
H-Index - 12
ISSN - 2380-6567
DOI - 10.1002/epa2.1099
Subject(s) - covid-19 , preparedness , pandemic , corporate governance , transparency (behavior) , political science , opposition (politics) , government (linguistics) , public administration , predictability , constructive , business , public relations , law , politics , medicine , infectious disease (medical specialty) , finance , virology , outbreak , disease , philosophy , process (computing) , linguistics , pathology , computer science , operating system , quantum mechanics , physics
Abstract This paper examines the governance of the COVID‐19 crisis in Spain. The main thesis is that the central reason for the pandemic's devastating outcomes was the relatively poor governance of the crisis as manifested by the country's lack of preparedness and its slow and delayed response. If we measure the three dimensions of governance (Mimicopoulos 2006), Spain came way short in efficiency: The lack of predictability in the institutional and policy environment hurt the response to the pandemic; in transparency: The lack of available and reliable data and the absence of information provided to the general public deeply undermined confidence and trust in the government as well adequate rand timely responses to the pandemic; and finally, in participation: The government rarely encouraged public input into decision making and failed to engage the opposition in a timely and constructive way.