Crisis management and public policies. The trend toward regulatory practices in some countries

Abstract

The article aims to investigate whether governments tend to implement regulatory policies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to examine the type of citizen response to different types of policies. Given that active and collaborative citizen participation is an essential element of adequate crisis management, citizen resistance, active opposition, and demonstrations in public spaces are detrimental to the successful outcome of government policies in the face of a crisis. We employ the crisis management and institutional analyses theoretical perspectives, as well as the qualitative methods of study case and the comparative studies. We review the different types of policies implemented in different countries. Our analysis shows that there is indeed a tendency for implementing regulatory policies. It also identifies that the places where regulative policies are created and implemented without taking into account contextual aspects, it usually catalyzes citizen's discomfort. Therefore, we argue that the type of policy used is relevant to deciding what governments' responses should be and their effect on legitimacy during crises.