Premium
Policy preferences in response to negative economic prospects of COVID‐19: A survey‐experiment among local politicians in four European countries
Author(s) -
Voet Joris
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
public administration
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.313
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1467-9299
pISSN - 0033-3298
DOI - 10.1111/padm.12729
Subject(s) - austerity , directive , pandemic , covid-19 , coping (psychology) , public sector , government (linguistics) , private sector , state (computer science) , political science , public economics , development economics , business , economic growth , economics , economic policy , politics , psychology , economy , medicine , philosophy , algorithm , psychiatry , law , linguistics , pathology , computer science , programming language , disease , infectious disease (medical specialty)
Abstract This study investigates how the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic affect local government politicians' policy preferences in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Spain. The study examines to what extent politicians prefer increasing the role of government (directive state), transferring public tasks to private sector organizations (hollow state), transferring public tasks to third sector organizations (communitarian state), or downsizing and reducing the role of government without transferring tasks (coping state). The experiment primes decision‐makers on the pandemic's negative financial and economic prospects vis‐à‐vis its impact on health and well‐being. When negative economic prospects are emphasized, the study finds decreased preferences for a directive state and increased preferences for a coping state. The study concludes that how decision‐makers interpret the nature of a crisis determines their preferred response: An emphasis on the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic is likely to increase preferences for renewed policies of austerity.