Crisis decision-making inside the core executive: Rationality, bureaucratic politics, standard procedures and the COVID-19 lockdown

The article explains how the unprecedented pandemic management decision to lock down the country came about, using the case of Norway and drawing on unique interview material from political and administrative executives. Urgency and precaution were the government's primary considerations in March 2020, with proportionality and due process only peripheral decision premises. Voices of moderation were drowned out at critical moments to pave the way for a lockdown. Moreover, Norway's lockdown decision lacked distinct and official agency, with none of the key actors able to say precisely when, where and by whom this decision of unprecedented size and scope had been taken. An interpretation using Graham Allison's analytical models shows that the rational policy model most accurately captures the case. The suggested implication is that when senior political executives take active control of an ultra-high-stakes process, decisions are unlikely to be the product of political resultants or organisational output.

The Nordic governments' responses to the Covid-19 pandemic: A comparative study of variation in governance arrangements and regulatory instruments.

Government responses to the Covid-19 pandemic in the Nordic states-Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden-exhibit similarities and differences. This article investigates the extent to which crisis policymaking diverges from normal policymaking within the Nordic countries and whether variations between the countries are associated with the role of expertise and the level of politicization. Government responses are analyzed in terms of governance arrangements and regulatory instruments. Findings demonstrate some deviation from normal policymaking within and considerable variation between the Nordic countries, as Denmark, Finland, and to some extent Norway exhibit similar patterns with hierarchical command and control governance arrangements, while Iceland, in some instances, resembles the case of Sweden, which has made use of network-based governance. The article shows that the higher the influence of experts, the more likely it is that the governance arrangement will be network-based.

The dynamics of governance capacity and legitimacy: the case of a digital tracing technology during the COVID-19 pandemic

Input, throughput, and output legitimacy of government measures are considered to be essential for governance capacity in crisis. During the COVID-19 crisis, governments around the world developed digital contact-tracing applications to support their crisis management-with varying degrees of success. While Norway is seen as a high performer in the crisis, the contact-tracing app called Smittestopp developed in Norway had little impact. Using a case study, we studied the governance capacity and legitimacy of this technology in terms of how it was developed, how much it was utilized by citizens, and its usefulness relative to other government measures. Although the app did very little to help the COVID-19 crisis management in Norway, we identify some important lessons to be learned. We argue that the initial input and throughput legitimacy is important if a government policy is to maintain output legitimacy over time and be effective in a crisis. Consequently, this study contributes to the literature on governance capacity and legitimacy in crisis management.

Guest editorial: Rethinking the state of the administrative state: Is the state back in?

Introduction The emergence and the frequency of what may be described as monumental crises, such as devasting hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes and the COVID-19 pandemic, their impact on human health and economic development and the need to forcefully address them have brought forth or resurrected the idea of the administrative state and its role in governance as broadly defined once again (Lin et al., 2020). The policies implemented in the name of the NPM led to the erosion of the institutions of the administrative state through policies that sought to cut social programmes and public sector jobs, through the sale of public assets and privatization (Cordelli, 2020), along with a more general weakening of regulation and the underfunding of public infrastructures, particularly healthcare and emergency management systems (Hood and Scott, 1996;Tomic and Heims, 2022). [...]the essence of this essay is to understand the administrative state and the various trajectories it has gone through up to now. [...]while it is clear that the state's role in almost all nations has continued to experience dramatic shifts, especially in dealing with wicked problems, the need to understand this dramatic shift from a more general perspective continues to be obscured in the current discussion. [...]as argued, there is the need to look at the role of the administrative state in a more holistic perspective rather than the current obsession to examine it mainly from how the state has evolved under the COVID-19 pandemic.

Scientization Under Pressure—The Problematic Role of Expert Bodies During the Handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article focuses on the role of experts in the Norwegian decision-making process in central government during the crisis management of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is based on a structural-instrumental and a cultural perspective. The main findings are that managing the pandemic led to a centralization of power in the hands of the political leadership, a blurring of the dichotomy between politics and administration, and a variety of expert advice. The crisis management also reflected the cultural appropriateness of a collaborative decision-making style, but it was not characterized by a scientization of policymaking. Rather than policymaking by experts it was policymaking informed by experts.

Comparing SARS and COVID-19: Challenges of Governance Capacity and Legitimacy

Governance capacity and legitimacy as two important dimensions in crisis management are crucial for preparing for, making sense of, handling, and learning from crises like epidemics/pandemics. We compare governance capacity and legitimacy of the government in China in response to the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics. Our comparison of the handling processes of two pandemics suggests both positive changes and persistent inertia. Both governance capacity and legitimacy has been improved over time, and there is a tendency that they reinforce each other. Such comparisons help to facilitate learning from the past to be better prepared for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Public Organization Review is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Balancing Governance Capacity and Legitimacy: How the Norwegian Government Handled the COVID-19 Crisis as a High Performer.

This essay addresses how the Norwegian government has handled the coronavirus pandemic. Compared with many other countries, Norway has performed well in handling the crisis. This must be understood in the context of competent politicians, a high-trust society with a reliable and professional bureaucracy, a strong state, a good economic situation, a big welfare state, and low population density. The Norwegian government managed to control the pandemic rather quickly by adopting a suppression strategy, followed by a control strategy, based on a collaborative and pragmatic decision-making style, successful communication with the public, a lot of resources, and a high level of citizen trust in government. The alleged success of the Norwegian case is about the relationship between crisis management capacity and legitimacy. Crisis management is most successful when it is able to combine democratic legitimacy with government capacity.