Publication
Multilevel governance and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review
In this article, Brendan Carrol, Lars Brummel, Dimiter Toshkov and Kutsal Yesilkagit summarise the literature on the effects of multilevel governance (MLG) on governments’ policy responses to Covid-19 and synthesise the findings.
- Author
- Brendan Carrol, Lars Brummel, Dimiter Toshkov and Kutsal Yesilkagit
- Date
- 26 December 2023
- Links
- Read the full article here
As the Covid-19 pandemic demanded coordinated action from governments at all levels, the role of federalism, decentralization, supranational authorities and other multilevel governance (MLG) institutions and processes in responses to it has come under much scholarly scrutiny. Three years on, much of this literature remains fragmented and in need of synthesis. In this systematic literature review the authors summarise the literature on the effects of MLG on governments’ policy responses to Covid-19.
The purpose of this literature review has been to collect and evaluate studies that focus on the effects of MLG institutions on governments’ responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. From the author's review, it is difficult to draw definitive conclusions on what role MLG institutions and processes play in responding to the pandemic.
One reason for this lack of insight, according to their research, can be ascribed to the lack of significant variation in MLG arrangements across the cases. Most comparisons are between similar types of MLG arrangements with fairly similar levels of federalism or regionalism. This precludes the isolation of MLG effects as would be the case in comparisons between centralised countries and federal or regionalised systems. The lack of variation masks the presence of possible effects of MLG institutions and processes.