Managing COVID-19 Emergency: How the Emotional Side is Part (and Maybe Engine) of Resiliency.

The current COVID-19 pandemic is increasing attention to the study of emergency policy, especially in light of the fluid nature of this extreme risk event, which is different from most of the other extreme risk events of the last decades. Researches on emergency policy have mainly focused on managerial and organisational aspects, with the aim of contributing to refining rational strategies and action protocols to better achieve the four typical emergency policy goals: risk mitigation, preparedness, emergency management and recovery. At the same time, several researches have highlighted the fallacy of a rationalistic approach to emergency policy and the importance of analysing public policy in order to work on approaches that are more attentive to reactivity, flexibility and adaptability. From this perspective, some scholars have pointed out that ‘decentralised improvisation and sense-making’ are important factors in determining the ability of organisations to handle unforeseen events that require timely action (Boin and van Eeten 2016, 136). These factors draw attention to the emotional dimension in decision-making processes, not only those concerning policy design, but also the operational decisions that characterize policy implementation. The present paper intends to investigate how do emotions manifest themselves in the implementation phase of the emergency policy. The paper reports the preliminary results of an ongoing research on the management of the COVID-19 emergency in Italy, which was the most affected European country of the first wave and had to set up a health emergency management system in few months. The research has been conducted from June 2020, through semi-structured interviews and job shadowing at the staff of the Extraordinary Commissioner for Emergency Management, appointed by the Prime Minister last March 2020.