Open AccessCrisis management in federal states: the role of peak intergovernmental councils in Germany and Switzerland during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Author(s) -
Johanna Schnabel,
Rahel Freiburghaus,
Yvonne Hegele
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
der moderne staat
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2196-1395
pISSN - 1865-7192
DOI - 10.3224/dms.v15i1.10
Subject(s) - pandemic , covid-19 , publicity , government (linguistics) , political science , public administration , crisis management , member states , economics , medicine , law , virology , european union , economic policy , linguistics , philosophy , disease , pathology , outbreak , infectious disease (medical specialty)
In federal states, intergovernmental councils were the main institutions through which the federal government and the constituent units coordinated their responses to COVID-19. To examine whether peak councils assumed a leading role during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure cross sectoral as well as intergovernmental coordination, this article compares the role of two “peak councils”—the Conference of Premiers (MPK) in Germany and the Conference of Cantonal Governments (KdK) in Switzerland—with sectoral councils in normal times and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis relies on an original database of more than 900 council outputs based on which we compare the level of activity, the publicity, the direction of action, and the bindingness of outputs. The findings show that MPK took a leading role during the pandemic, a role that was indeed unusual when compared to normal times, while KdK, which likewise does not play a leading role in normal times, did not during the pandemic either.