This book explores various issues and challenges emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines how governments worldwide have dealt with the pandemic. Post-COVID-19 and its disruptive impact on social and economic life as well as public and political attitudes, the world is not the same. A new normal has dawned in public management and public services, with immense implications. This volume collects the lessons drawn from the pandemic, notably how crisis leadership and public governance were used to combat the crisis, as well as which aspects were helpful in that regard. This book covers a total of 17 countries and regions, namely: Japan, South Korea, Singapore, China (Mainland), Hong Kong, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, The Netherlands, the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland), the UK and US. Special attention is drawn to China (Mainland) in particular, where the pandemic first broke out. Its subsequent efforts in suppressing the epidemic have been quite stunning. The range enables good international comparisons to be made in crisis leadership, response strategies and effectiveness across continents, systems, and cultures (East Asia, Oceania, Europe and North America). While the pandemic is still ongoing by the time the book is finalized, the experience gained over more than two years has provided good ground for lesson drawing.

Covid-19 and Governance focuses on the relationship between governance institutions and approaches to Covid-19 and health outcomes. Bringing together analyses of Covid-19 developments in countries and regions across the world with a wide-angle lens on governance, this volume asks: what works, what hasn’t and isn’t, and why? Organized by region, the book is structured to follow the spread of Covid-19 in the course of 2020, through Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. The analyses explore a number of key themes, including public health systems, government capability, and trust in government—as well as underlying variables of social cohesion and inequality. This volume combines governance, policies, and politics to bring wide international scope and analytical depth to the study of the Covid-19 pandemic. Together the authors represent a diverse and formidable database of experience and understanding. They include sociologists, anthropologists, scholars of development studies and public administration, as well as MD specialists in public health and epidemiology. Engaged and free of jargon, this book speaks to a wide global public—including scholars, students, and policymakers—on a topic that has profound and broad appeal.

This open access book offers unique insights into how governments and governing systems, particularly in advanced economies, have responded to the immense challenges of managing the coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing disease COVID-19. Written by three eminent scholars in the field of the politics and policy of crisis management, it offers a unique ‘bird’s eye’ view of the immense logistical and political challenges of addressing a worst-case scenario that would prove the ultimate stress test for societies, governments, governing institutions and political leaders. It examines how governments and governing systems have (i) made sense of emerging transboundary threats that have spilled across health, economic, political and social systems (ii) mobilised systems of governance and often fearful and sceptical citizens (iii) crafted narratives amid high uncertainty about the virus and its impact and (iv) are working towards closure and a return to ‘normal’ when things can never quite be the same again. The book also offers the building blocks of pathways to future resilience. Succeeding and failing in all these realms is tied in with governance structures, experts, trust, leadership capabilities and political ideologies. The book appeals to anyone seeking to understand ‘what’s going on?’, but particularly academics and students across multiple disciplines, journalists, public officials, politicians, non-governmental organisations and citizen groups.

This book presents a series of studies on organizations across Europe, displaying new perspectives on institutional resilience of affected governance structures during crisis. Such an approach to governance studies not only aims to provide readers with conceptual and practical knowledge on crisis experience of organizations, but also to equip them with necessary cognitive tools to perform well in a similar crisis context in the future. The book highlights knowledge on institutional resilience and delivers an enduring resource for researchers and students on a time of unprecedented crisis. Cross-national/sectorial interdependences in Europe are multiplying, while institutional reaction and international collaboration mechanisms are falling behind. The studies presented here aim to shape a conceptual understanding of students, academics, and practitioners considering these contemporary challenges and opportunities. They provide a valuable resource in the field of governance, sustainability, crisis management, innovation, and leadership.

Lead your business through the crisis, and prepare it to rebound in the recovery. As the pandemic is exacting its toll on our lives and wreaking havoc in the global economy, forward-looking organizations are moving past crisis management and positioning themselves to leap ahead when the economy turns around. What should you and your business be doing now to stay afloat today—while planning for tomorrow so you can come out of the crisis stronger? Part of The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series, Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery provides you with essential thinking about managing your company through the Covid-19 pandemic, keeping your employees (and yourself) healthy and productive, and challenging your business to continue innovating and reinvent itself ahead of the recovery. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

Lead through the crisis and prepare for recovery. As the Covid-19 pandemic is exacting its toll on the global economy, forward-looking organizations are moving past crisis management and positioning themselves to leap ahead when the worst is over. What should you and your organization be doing now to address today's unprecedented challenges while laying the foundation needed to emerge stronger? Coronavirus: Leadership and Recovery provides you with essential thinking about managing your company through the pandemic, keeping your employees (and yourself) healthy and productive, and spurring your business to continue innovating and reinventing itself ahead of the recovery. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

This topical book presents a bottom-up perspective on the crisis management, policies, organisation and functioning of democracy across five Nordic countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a four-year comparative study of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, it considers the divergent local and regional management strategies employed as the crisis unfolded. Chapters consider how the pandemic jeopardised the Nordic countries' high levels of decentralisation and citizen trust in government institutions, and the devolution of functions to local government. They explore the severe and restrictive measures employed to control the spread of the virus, and whether these evolving regimes respected civil rights and the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. Brought together under the overarching perspective of institutional polycentrism, the book draws on a variety of theoretical strands, including theories of multi-level governance, crisis management, and organisational dependency. With empirical data, population and leader surveys and country case-studies, it presents the experiences of Nordic citizens and examines whether their trust in government was sustained or eroded. International in scope, this book is invaluable for students and scholars of regulation and governance, public administration, public health policy, and comparative politics. Its examinations of regulatory and legal frameworks will also prove useful for policy advisors working in public health and crisis management.