Highlighting the Main Poles of Political Performance and Governance Capacity at EU Level. Implications in the Context of COVID-19 Crisis

The paper aims to examine the political performance and governance capacity at EU level. The study is conducted using data from Sustainable Governance Indicators Database (SGI). Statistical methods based on composing aggregate indices are proposed using 21 indicators grouped in 11 dimensions, and countries are classified according to the performance obtained by the cluster method. The principal component analysis revealed six main factors: “PCT Patent Applications,” “Life expectancy,” “Old age dependency ratio,” “Tax system complexity,” “Inflation,” and “Fertility rate.” After calculating the final value of the index of political performance and governance capacity, we have identified three main groups of countries, as follows: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Austria, Germany, Spain, Belgium, France, Italy, and the Netherlands with high political and governance performance, countries with an increasing trend (Estonia, Croatia, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom), and countries with poor performance (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary). Romania ranks last in terms of political performance and governance capacity. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The influence of democracy, governance and government policies on the COVID-19 pandemic mortality.

The paper analyses the determinants of mortality during the Corona pandemic. In a first step, possible causes are subjected to a global comparison.The focus is on political, institutional, economic, demographic and health policy factors. It is shown that, contrary to the assumption, democratic countries have a higher Covid-19 mortality. In a second step, the developed democracies are then analysed to explain this puzzle. Here, more detailed information is used than in the global comparison. It turns out that, measured by the Oxford Stringency Index, government action has been largely unsuccessful. Also, the party-political composition of the government does not play a role.The most important factors are a country's governance structures, the level of corona incidence, a country's burden of high-risk patients and its health system. In addition, cultural factors and the vaccination rate seem to have an influence on mortality.

El artículo analiza los determinantes de la mortalidad durante la pandemia de Corona. En un primer paso, las posibles causas se someten a una comparación global. La atención se centra en factores políticos, institucionales, económicos, demográficos y de política sanitaria. Se muestra que, contrariamente a lo que se supone, los países democráticos tienen una mayor mortalidad por Covid­19. En un segundo paso, se analizan las democracias desarrolladas para explicar este rompecabezas. Aquí se utiliza información más detallada que en la comparación global. Resulta que, medido por el índice de rigurosidad de Oxford, la acción del gobierno ha sido en gran parte infructuosa. Además, la composición política del partido del gobierno no juega un papel. Los factores más importantes son las estructuras de gobierno de un país, el nivel de incidencia de corona, la carga de pacientes de alto riesgo de un país y su sistema de salud. Además, los factores culturales y la tasa de vacunación parecen influir en la mortalidad.