Southern European Health Policy Responses to the COVID-19: the Role of Core State Capacity for Political Crisis Management

Some of the world’s top-ranking health care systems are in Europe. Yet, they have been remarkably ill-equipped to handle effectively the COVID-19 global pandemic. This new public health and medical emergency has posed compelling pressures on the political act of crisis management in Southern European NHS-based health care systems (Ferrera, 1996), especially in Italy and Spain where governments struggled to fight against the virus. This article contributes to the discussion of crisis management’s theoretical approaches in the field of comparative health policy (Boin et al, 2016). We plan to analyze and explain the impact of critical political and institutional factors associated with the level of national and regional crisis preparedness and state capacity on different national and regional policy responses adopted to manage the Corona virus crisis in Southern Europe. We focus empirically on two main response measures: (1) early lockdown; (2) strategies to expand capacity, including workforce to treat COVID-19 patients, PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), and number of beds in ICUs (Intense Care Units). For this purpose, we analyze empirical data from the WHO’s COVID-19 Health Systems Response Monitor, WHO health statistics, WHO’s Situation Reports, and policy documents from national and regional governments in Spain and Italy.