LIST OF WORKSHOPS

The objectives of this workshop are firstly to examine how local governments, particularly the larger urban governments around the world, have continued to fulfill their functions and mobilize the financial and human resources to meet the pandemic outbreaks, and secondly to identify the new urban governance policy paradigms that have emerged and will continue after the pandemic has been contained.

Other than world wars, the impact of a world pandemic probably produces the most consequential changes in the relationship between state governments and their citizens. It alters the political, economic and social relationships and may produce the most profound and long-lasting changes across the world.  And like the impact of world wars, the consequences, both intended and unintended, of the many policy decisions made may not be known for many years and the lessons to be learned will remain hidden.

The COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized the scientific and policy community at both the national and subnational levels, the international community organizations, particularly WHO, and the non-profit charitable organizations that deal with social problems, particularly in the health sector.  It has altered the policy processes typical of the pre-pandemic period, the resource allocations of the international, national and subnational organizations, and the private sector actions to support the efforts to contain the pandemic. 

The political impacts of the COVID-19 response have resulted in new perceptions of what governments can do to control pandemics and get public acceptance of these decisions. The economic impacts have been most severe as whole national and international economies have come to a halt, international travel has been totally halted in some cases and entire economic sectors have completely shut down. The social interactions of families and friends in communities through schools, health and leisure facilities have been severely constrained. With all of these impacts, the most seriously affected level of government has been at the subnational scale, particularly in those urban areas with high concentrations of disadvantaged people where the COVID-19 outbreaks have been most prevalent.

The impacts at the local government level are at least threefold in terms of the policies that have been adopted from the central level policy decisions. 

First, the local governments have had to respond to the policy decisions made with regard to the methods to contain the pandemic and to provide health services to the citizens. This was done in many cases without their input into making these decisions. In essence, the policy making process and stakeholders in this process were realigned due to the urgency of the pandemic. The proper role of local governments with inputs into decision-making processes was not apparent or at an appropriate level of interaction.

Second, the local governments, as primary service providers for health, education and social services, had to adapt to the new service delivery requirements that these policy decisions imposed on them. The local policy making process was modified as these new health care needs and changes in service delivery requirements placed a huge burden on their capacities that had to be addressed.

Third, the economic policy response in implementing the shutdown of economic activity has created additional financial crises on the local governments. The normal sources of revenues through economic activity, which many local governments relied on where no longer available to them. Therefore, the local government budgets came under considerable strain as their financial burden for service delivery dramatically increased.

Research Questions:

The research questions that are of interest fall into a broad scope of areas in which the COVID-19 pandemic has substantially altered the normal or usual policy-making processes and what new mitigation and adaption measures have resulted as a result of the new urban governance environment in which central and subnational governments, private sector and civil society organizations must now interact.  These can be broken down into the following areas for which the research questions can be defined.

Changes in the Public Policy Theory

·         How has the COVID-19 Pandemic impacted the public policy stages of (1) agenda setting, (2) formulation, (3) implementation, (4) evaluation and (5) termination?

·         To what extent have new urban governance policy paradigms emerged and what is the likelihood of these continuing after the pandemic has been contained?

·         How has the impact of social media impacted the public policy process stages and formulation of policies at the national and subnational level?

Changes in the Policy Making Process:

·         What policy making processes have changed due to the pandemic?

·         What new policy stakeholders have entered into the policy process due to the pandemic?

·         What new elements were introduced into the policy process as a result of needing to response rapidly to the pandemic situation?

Changes in the Roles of the National and Subnational Governments:

·         How did the pandemic create new roles and responsibilities between the central and local governments?

·         How did the pandemic impact processes for decentralization and increased authority of the local governments to manage their affairs?

·         What functions previously assigned to the local governments were changed due to the pandemic consequences?

Role of Policy Analysts and Public Health Experts

·         What effects did policy analysts and public health experts have on the design and implementation of the public policy decisions on containing the pandemic?

·         How was the advice of the policy analysts and public health experts received by the policy makers and the public?

·         What new approaches or methods should policy analysts and public health experts utilize as a result of the experience in providing advice to policy makers concerning the pandemic?

Role of Citizens with their Governments

·         Did acceptance or rejection of the policy decisions by the citizens realign the relationship between citizens and their governments?

·         How did the policy decisions by governments affect the level of trust by the citizens to their national and local government officials?

·         Did the pandemic increase citizen participation in the policy making process and decisions by national and local governments?

New Service Delivery Approaches

·         What new levels of service delivery resulted from meeting the requirements of the pandemic?

·         What choices did local governments have to make in their mix of local services in areas of education, health, and social services?

·         How did local governments incorporate local citizen input and participation into the process of service delivery decisions?

Fiscal Consequences of Meeting the Pandemic Requirements

·         What models were applied to financially empower local governments during the pandemic fight - budgetary support, emergency response funds, use of financial reserves, concessional debt, in-kind support, relaxation of fiscal rules, and greater fiscal decision autonomy?

·         What improved fiscal management methods were instituted for the pandemic response and what empirical analysis of key indicators were made?

Scientific Relevance

It is likely that the COVID-19 pandemic response has created new paradigms of relationships between levels of government, new policy processes, mix of policy stakeholders, particularly between policy experts and policy decision-makers, and between citizens and their governments over the level of acceptance and trust of government policy decisions. These new paradigms are likely to vary from place to place according to particular conditions and circumstances, and need to be thoroughly researched to see what changes and adjustments will need to be made in the literature and teaching of public policy. 

This workshop proposal is intended to begin that process of recognizing the policy impacts on the local and urban governments where the great majority of the impacts of COVID-19 have occurred. It will be an opportunity for a broad examination of these changes and to identify how urban and local governments undertook to mitigate and adapt to this new environment.

Research has already begun to assess the impact of COVID. This is being led by international organizations such as the OECD that has published a report The Territorial Impact of COVID-19: Managing the Crisis Across Levels of Government (https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/the-territorial-impact-of-covid-19-managing-the-crisis-across-levels-of-government-d3e314e1/).  Additional research is forthcoming from other research organizations and policy researchers and academics that demonstrate the scientific level of interest in this policy area.

Other research reports related to the impact of COVID-19 include the following:

Chernick, H., D. Copeland and A. Reschovsky (2020), “THE FISCAL EFFECTS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON CITIES: AN INITIAL ASSESSMENT”, National Tax Journal, https://doi.org/10.17310/ntj.2020.3.04.

Edelman (2020), Edelman Trust Barometer 2020 Spring Update: Trust and the Covid-19 Pandemic, Edelman, https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2020-05/2020%20Edelman%20Trust%20Barometer%20Spring%20Update.pdf (accessed on  June 2020)

Federation of Canadian Municipalities (2020), Protecting vital municipal services, https://data.fcm.ca/documents/resources/reports/protecting-vital-municipal-services.pdf.

Institute for Fiscal Studies (2020), COVID-19 and English council funding: how are budgets being hit in 2020–21?.

This is a call for papers to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the public policy processes and decisions at the national, local and urban governments. It is intended to begin the research of the new environment under which national and local governments must operate and how they have adapted to the changing roles, responsibilities and the policy decisions that were made. The papers should examine a broad range of policy processes with particular emphasis on the changing roles and relationship between levels of government, the changes in the theory and practice of the policy making process resulting from the challenges of containing the pandemic, the role of policy analysts and  experts in the process of design and implementation of policy decisions, the changes in roles and activities of the citizens with public policy process and decisions, and the service delivery and financial impacts on local governments. Specific country national and  local government level experiences of formulating the policy decisions and roles of the policy stakeholders in the process are particularly encouraged. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant consequences on the relationship of levels of government, the policy processes, the role of policy stakeholders, and the services and fiscal resources of urban governments around the world. The impacts on these public policy areas are yet to be fully examined, but will produce significant changes in the research and literature of the public policy community over the long term. The workshop is intended to begin this research with a focus on the urban and local governments that were most impacted by the national level decisions in the areas of economic and public health policy. The workshop papers will examine a broad range of public policy issues including the changing relationships between levels of government, the policy process, the policy stakeholders, and the service and fiscal level capacities of the local governments. Specific experiences in these areas with a world-wide perspective will add to the level of knowledge and literature that will highlight the mitigation and adaptation methods in this new governance environment.

Glen Wright has thirty years of work in international development with emphasis on central and local government relations, intergovernmental fiscal systems, and conflict situations. He has been a member of IPPA for 5 years and participated in Singapore and Barcelona Conferences. He presented a paper on "New Rules for Implementation of Decentralization" at the Singapore Conference and co-chaired a panel on The Impact of Decentralization on Local Government Systems at the Barcelona conference. He has recently published papers on the implementation of decentralization in Ukraine in the NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy.

Maria Antonia Almeida is Political science researcher and guest assistant professor at ISCTE-IUL. Master and PhD in Modern and Contemporary History and two Post-Doctoral research projects on Political Science, focusing on Local Government. Specialized in political transitions, local government, political and economic elites, memories and identities, rural and urban history, biographies. Author of twelve books, articles in scientific journals, such as Public Understanding of Science, Rural History, Portuguese Journal of Social Science, European Societies, AGER, Continuity and Change, and over 5.000 articles, book chapters and dictionary entries available online. Co-chaired two panels on “Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Local Governments: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches”, ECPR General Conference 2021.

Tony Gore is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR) at Sheffield Hallam University in the United Kingdom. He has extensive experience of research and evaluation on urban, rural and regional development, with particular expertise in community-based economic regeneration, access to employment, cross-cutting environmental issues and associated approaches to collaborative governance. This has involved work for government departments, regional bodies, local authorities, charities and research foundations at national and European scales. He recently led a review of local government responses to Covid-19 in the UK as part of the International Geographical Union Commission on the Geography of Governance’s comparative programme of studies on this important theme, the first report from which was published in March 2021. Many other publications have resulted from his long-running track record in applied research, including numerous academic journal articles, more than 60 research reports and policy papers, several book chapters, plus a range of other reviews and commentaries.