LIST OF PANELS

This aim of this panel is to explore issues of governance in health systems with respect to various dimensions and phases of the Covid-19 crisis.

The Covid-19 pandemic has put health systems under unprecedented pressure; with impacts that can be seen as a ‘polycrisis’ (Tooze 2001).  As the pandemic intersected with economic and social crises to create multiple and compounding risks, existing strains and inequities were exacerbated and service capacities reached their limits. The success of national responses has relied on effective forms of governance (Assefa Y, et al 2022).

Governance – including the norms, structures, actors, institutions, and formal and informal relationships that shape authority and action in a system – has been at the centre of public policy analysis of the responses to the pandemic. We aim to bring together and deepen this scholarly work to analyse the policy consequences of the pandemic in three crises of governance:

1.       Policy-making at the centre – including state capacities in decision making, leadership, the (mis)use of evidence, and implementation (McConnell and Stark 2021). Issues may include the legacies of neo-liberalism and ‘hollowing’ of state capacities or the effects of more devolved, multi-level government. (Weiss and Thurbon 2022). 
We explore: To what extent have broader shifts in governance and public management manifested in responses to the Covid-19 pandemic?

2.       Governance as a problem of systems integration. The crisis exposed gaps, overlaps and conflicts in health systems across multiple lines; including centralised vs local decision making; public vs private services; bio-medical vs social responses and primary vs tertiary care.  Issues include how forms of governance shaped health system responses, enabling and integrating effective surveillance, testing and vaccination, public health communication and service sustainability. (Weitzberg et al (2022), Sundararaman T et al 2021).
We explore: What have been the features of (in)effective health system governance with respect to integration, coordination and equity during various phases of the Covid-19 crisis?

3.      Post-pandemic policy lessons and health reform.  The extent to which that pandemic, as an external shock, has acted as a catalyst for health reform beyond pre-pandemic norms is currently unfolding (Bali, He, Ramesh 2022).
We explore: In what ways has the Covid-19 pandemic catalysed reform of health systems, and in what ways have health systems been unreceptive to reform?

Assefa Y, Gilks CF, Reid S et al (2022) Analysis of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Lessons towards a more effective response to public health emergencies. Globalization and Health 18 (10).

Bali AS, He AJ, Ramesh M (2022), Health Policy  and Covid-19: path dependency and trajectory’, Policy and Society 41 (1) 83-95.

McConnell A and Stark A (2021), Understanding policy responses to COVID-19: the stars haven’t fallen from the sky for scholars of public policy, European Journal of Public Policy, 28 (8) 1115-1130.

Sundararaman T, Muraleedharan VR, Ranjan A 2021 Pandemic Resilience and Health Systems Preparedness: Lessons from Covid-19 for the 21^st century’, Journal of economic and Social development 23 (Supp 2) s.290-300.

Weiss L and Thurbon E (2022) Explaining Divergent National Responses to COVID-19: An enhanced state capacity framework’, New Political Economy, 27 (4).

Weitzberg et al (2022) Early Health System Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Mediterranean Countries. Health Policy 126 (7) 722

In this panel we explore issues of governance of health systems with respect to the Covid-19 crisis.

Papers should explore issues around of the role of governance in effective and ineffective responses, as well as health system integration, reform, sustainability, and equity. We are particularly interested papers addressing the following themes:

·         The extent to which broader shifts in governance and public management manifested in responses to the Covid-19 pandemic.

·         Features of (in)effective governance with respect to health system integration, coordination and sustainability during various phases of the Covid-19 crisis.

·         New forms of networking and intermediation between locations of authority in health systems as well as models of governance spanning public and private, primary and tertiary, and health and social care services.

·         How forms of governance responded to – or deepened – health inequity; including the interaction of economic, social as well as health interventions.

·         Emerging from the crisis – the extent to which the pandemic left an imprint on health reform or reverted to pre-pandemic alignments.

·         Comparative analysis, including at regional level and the sources and effectiveness of different approaches to crisis governance

We invite empirical, normative, theoretical, as well policy-in-practice papers that address how governance has shaped responses to the pandemic.

We welcome papers from disciplines that include (but are not limited to) health policy, public policy, administration and management, political science, political economy and comparative public policy.