COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives

Christopher M Weible; Daniel Nohrstedt; Paul Cairney; David P Carter; Deserai A Crow; Anna P Durnová; Tanya Heikkila; Karin Ingold; Allan McConnell; Diane Stone

doi:10.1007/s11077-020-09381-4

COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives

Policy Sci. 2020;53(2):225-241. doi: 10.1007/s11077-020-09381-4. Epub 2020 Apr 18.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, 1380 Lawrence Street, Denver, CO 80238 USA.
² Department of Government, and Center of Natural Hazards and Disaster Science (CNDS), Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
³ Division of History, Heritage, and Politics, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
⁴ Program of Public Affairs, Department of Political Science, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT USA.
⁵ Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria.
⁶ Institute of Political Science and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
⁷ Environnemental Social Science Department, Eawag, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
⁸ Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
⁹ School of Public Policy, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.

Abstract

The world is in the grip of a crisis that stands unprecedented in living memory. The COVID-19 pandemic is urgent, global in scale, and massive in impacts. Following Harold D. Lasswell's goal for the policy sciences to offer insights into unfolding phenomena, this commentary draws on the lessons of the policy sciences literature to understand the dynamics related to COVID-19. We explore the ways in which scientific and technical expertise, emotions, and narratives influence policy decisions and shape relationships among citizens, organizations, and governments. We discuss varied processes of adaptation and change, including learning, surges in policy responses, alterations in networks (locally and globally), implementing policies across transboundary issues, and assessing policy success and failure. We conclude by identifying understudied aspects of the policy sciences that deserve attention in the pandemic's aftermath.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Crisis; Pandemic; Policy processes; Policy sciences; Public policy.