Policy styles and trust in the age of pandemics: global threat, national responses

The politics of national responses to the Covid-19 pandemic / Nikolaos Zahariadis, Evangelia Petridou, Theofanis Exadaktylos, and Jörgen Sparf -- Policy styles and policy making during times of crisis / Nikolaos Zahariadis, Evangelia Petridou, Theofanis Exadaktylos, and Jörgen Sparf -- Policy styles and the Chinese Covid-19 response / Stephen Ceccoli -- Turkey's Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic / Lacin Idil Oztig -- Centralization and lockdown : the Greek response / Nikolaos Zahariadis and Vassilis Karokis-Mavrikos -- Kenya's response to Covid-19 : lockdown and stringent enforcement / Shadrack Nasong'o -- Norwegian corporatism : a centripetal national response to the pandemic / Jörgen Sparf -- New Zealand COVID response : leadership, communication and trust / W. John Hopkins and Annick Masselot -- Of herd immunity and inoculation investment : the British response to COVID-19 / Theofanis Exadaktylos -- The breakdown of cooperative federalism : Brazil's response to The Covid-19 Pandemic / Valesca Lima and José de Arimatéia da Cruz -- The US response to the COVID-19 pandemic : incoherent leadership, fractured federalism, and squandered capacity / Kristin Taylor, Rob A. DeLeo, Deserai A. Crow, and Thomas A. Birkland -- Following the public health agency's guidelines : the Swedish approach / Evangelia Petridou -- Different governments, different responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic? Concluding remarks and the way forward / Jale Tosun.

"This book explores the reasons behind the variation in national responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. In doing so, it furthers the policy studies scholarship through an examination of the effects of policy styles on national responses to the pandemic. Despite governments being faced with the same threat, significant variation in national responses, frequently of contradictory nature, has been observed. Implications about responses inform a broader class of crises beyond this specific context. The authors argue that trust in government interacts with policy styles resulting in different responses and that the acute turbulence, uncertainty, and urgency of crises complicates the ability of policymakers to make sense of the problem. Finally, the book posits that unless there is high trust between society and the state, a decentralized response will likely be disastrous and concludes that while national responses to crises aim to save lives, they also serve to project political power and protect the status quo. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of public policy, public administration, political science, sociology, public health, and crisis management/disaster management studies"--