The power of the past: An analysis of the effect of structural determinants shaping COVID-19 policy response in the European Union

The COVID-19 pandemic displayed a crisis with complex policy issues and relied on the responses of national governments. This study seeks to investigate the influence of structural determinants on these responses, rather than short-term mechanisms. The responses could either be perceived as stringent or liberal, based on data extracted from the Oxford stringency index. Earlier research shows that long-term conditions have a larger effect on crisis policy response and offer more predictive results. Based on these structural determinants, five conditions were found using academic literature and turned into testable hypotheses. The level of democracy, political trust, economic development, the level of social safety net and state capacity to shape crisis policy response were derived from the literature and chosen for this research. Accordingly, a multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between a combination of these independent variables and the Oxford...Show moreThe COVID-19 pandemic displayed a crisis with complex policy issues and relied on the responses of national governments. This study seeks to investigate the influence of structural determinants on these responses, rather than short-term mechanisms. The responses could either be perceived as stringent or liberal, based on data extracted from the Oxford stringency index. Earlier research shows that long-term conditions have a larger effect on crisis policy response and offer more predictive results. Based on these structural determinants, five conditions were found using academic literature and turned into testable hypotheses. The level of democracy, political trust, economic development, the level of social safety net and state capacity to shape crisis policy response were derived from the literature and chosen for this research. Accordingly, a multiple regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between a combination of these independent variables and the Oxford stringency index, serving as outcome variable. The results found that there is a significant relationship between these independent variables and the stringency index of the COVID-19 policy response. Particularly the economic development and state capacity of a state were deemed to be significant.Show less

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The power of the past: An analysis of the effect of structural determinants shaping COVID-19 policy response in the European Union