COVID-19 and the policy sciences: initial reactions and perspectives
Open accessAbstract
The world is in the grip of a crisis that stands unprecedented in living memory. The COVID-19 pandemic is urgent, global in scale, and massive in impacts. Following Harold D. Lasswell's goal for the policy sciences to offer insights into unfolding phenomena, this commentary draws on the lessons of the policy sciences literature to understand the dynamics related to COVID-19. We explore the ways in which scientific and technical expertise, emotions, and narratives influence policy decisions and shape relationships among citizens, organizations, and governments. We discuss varied processes of adaptation and change, including learning, surges in policy responses, alterations in networks (locally and globally), implementing policies across transboundary issues, and assessing policy success and failure. We conclude by identifying understudied aspects of the policy sciences that deserve attention in the pandemic's aftermath.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Several other factors are also likely to affect the time to school closure, not least the severity of the threat posed by the pandemic and the increasing likelihood of learning as the pandemic progresses.
“several other factors are also likely to affect the time to school closure, not least the severity of the threat posed by the pandemic -which affects need perceptions of both decision-makers and voters (Bechtel and Mannino 2022) -and the increasing likelihood of learning as the pandemic progresses (Sebhatu et al. 2020; Weible et al. 2020).”
From Precaution and proportionality in pandemic politics: democracy, state capacity, and COVID-19-related school closures around the world (2022) · cites this paper as Weible et al. 2020
If authoritative experts are involved in policy-making, it may make it easier for political leaders to shield themselves from potential blame, by shifting responsibility to certified expertise.
“if authoritative experts are involved in policy-making, it may make it easier for political leaders to shield themselves from potential blame, by shifting the responsibility for important decisions to the certified expertise”
From Precaution and proportionality in pandemic politics: democracy, state capacity, and COVID-19-related school closures around the world (2022) · cites this paper as Weible et al. 2020
Cited by
Sorted by citations
COVID-19: effective policymaking depends on trust in experts, politicians, and the public
Cairney, P., & Wellstead, A. (2020) · Policy Design and Practice · doi:10.1080/25741292.2020.1837466 · Cited by 216 · see citing works
Self-citationPark, C. L., Finkelstein-Fox, L., Russell, B. S., Fendrich, M., Hutchison, M., & Becker, J. (2021) · American Psychologist · doi:10.1037/amp0000813 · Cited by 127 · see citing works
Tangcharoensathien, V., Bassett, M. T., Meng, Q., & Mills, A. (2021) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.n83 · Cited by 122 · see citing works
Hogan, J., Howlett, M., & Murphy, M. (2022) · Policy and Society · doi:10.1093/polsoc/puab009 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
The UK Government’s COVID-19 Policy: What Does “Guided by the Science” Mean in Practice?
Cairney, P. (2021) · Frontiers in Political Science · doi:10.3389/fpos.2021.624068 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Self-citationMockaitis, A. I., Butler, C. L., & Ojo, A. (2022) · Journal of Vocational Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103768 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Muehlschlegel, P. A., Parkinson, E. A., Chan, R. Y., Arden, M. A., & Armitage, C. J. (2021) · Journal of Global Health · doi:10.7189/jogh.11.05008 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Cronert, A. (2022) · Journal of Public Policy · doi:10.1017/s0143814x22000101 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
“…accounts for the generally higher baseline hazard of school closure among countries that were hit later by the pandemic, which is likely in part due to their opportunity to learn from the policy responses in countries that were affected earlier (Sebhatu et al. 2020; Weible et al. 2020).”
BackgroundInfluentialMartindale, A.-M., Pilbeam, C., Mableson, H., Tonkin-Crine, S., Atkinson, P., Borek, A., Lant, S., Gobat, N., Solomon, T., & Sheard, S. (2021) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-021-11285-8 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
How policymakers and other leaders can build a more sustainable post-COVID-19 ‘normal’
Bragge, P., Becker, U., Breu, T., Carlsen, H., Griggs, D., Lavis, J. N., Zimm, C., & Stevance, A.-S. (2022) · Discover Sustainability · doi:10.1007/s43621-022-00074-x · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Weible, C. M., Nohrstedt, D., Cairney, P., Carter, D. P., Anderson, D., Durnová, A. P., Heikkila, T., Ingold, K., McConnell, A., & Stone, D.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Denver (US)
- Uppsala University (SE)
- University of Stirling (GB)
- University of Utah (US)
- Institut für Höhere Studien - Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS) (AT)
- University of Bern (CH)
- The University of Sydney (AU)
- Central European University - Budapest Campus (HU)
- Corresponding author
- Weible, Christopher M.
- ORCID
- Venue
- Policy Sciences
- Published
- 2020-04-18
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 225-241
- ISSN
- 0032-2687 (ISSN-L)
- 1573-0891
- PMC
- PMC7165254
- OpenAlex
- W3016700942
- Cited by
- 602
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 97 · 2022: 131 · 2021: 180 · 2020: 98
- FWCI
- 436.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Policy Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Stirling Online Research Repository (University of Stirling) (submittedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Cadmus - EUI Research Repository (European University Institute) (submittedVersion, public-domain)
- DORA Eawag (Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag)) (submittedVersion)
- The Sydney eScholarship Repository (The University of Sydney) (submittedVersion)
- Open Access CRIS of the University of Bern
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policy Transfer and Learning
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Social Sciences › Public Administration › Public Policy and Administration Research
- Keywords
- COVID-19 pandemic, policy decision-making, scientific expertise, citizen-government relations, policy adaptation, policy implementation, policy evaluation, Harold Lasswell
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
