The Politics of Pandemic Lawmaking: The Policy Content of Legislative Initiatives Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic confronted national governments with simultaneous pressures to expand healthcare capacity, curb transmission, and mitigate the economic and social consequences of lockdowns. Legislative responses often involved difficult trade-offs between public health protection and fundamental rights and freedoms, and between extensive state intervention (including support for individuals and businesses) and market-oriented principles such as competition. This study examines the legislative initiatives advanced during the pandemic, asking which actors they originated with, what policy problems they targeted, and how their content reflected assessments of the evolving threat. It also investigates the extent to which pandemic-labelled legislation was used to address issues beyond COVID-19, and whether such policy bundling was substantively and procedurally justified. The project employs qualitative, comparative analysis across a small set of countries (including Poland, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria), focusing on the policy content and framing of legislative proposals and enacted measures.