Publius has published a new paper on the territorial policy dynamics cased by COVID-19 pandemic on Western Europe. Written by the Aston University (Birmingham, UK) professor Davide Vampa, “COVID-19 and Territorial Policy Dynamics in Western Europe: Comparing France, Spain, Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom”, seeks to assess and explain territorial policy dynamics in these five European countries from the start of the COVID-19 pandemic up to early 2021.

According to the author, the pandemic has clearly highlighted well-known differences between centralized and decentralized systems. And it is suggested that, while the distribution of authority between central and regional governments matters, policy dynamics—that is, how different territorial levels interact in policy-making processes—are even more important in driving multi-level responses to the emergency. Whether these dynamics are hierarchical (France), competitive (Italy and Spain), cooperative (Germany) or mixed (the United Kingdom) depends on how pre-crisis institutional, sectoral and political “causal forces” moderate the impact of an exogenous shock.

This paper can be read at the following link.

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