Pandemic Policymaking in Presidential Federations: Explaining Subnational Responses to Covid-19 in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States

Abstract

Why do COVID-19 social distancing policies vary so widely across states in federal countries? This mixed-methods study of Brazil, Mexico, and the United States finds that state-level variation in the stringency of social distancing policies is driven not by the epidemiological, demographic, or socioeconomic factors commonly emphasized in previous research, but largely by political factors. Introducing a novel framework for explaining pandemic policymaking, the study shows the central importance of political parties, presidential power, and governors’ coalitions in determining state-level policy stringency. In the United States and Mexico, statistical and qualitative evidence indicates that interstate collaboration among governors, combined with top-down pressures from national party elites and presidents, led to greater policy alignment among coordinated states. In Brazil, in contrast, where there is little evidence of either policy coordination or alignment, state-level policies resulted instead from intrastate factors and diffusion. Together, these findings highlight how a multilevel framework attuned to varied combinations of intra-unit, cross-unit, and cross-level causal factors strengthens our understanding of pandemic policymaking.

Predicting COVID-19 Cases in South Korea Using Stringency and Niño Sea Surface Temperature Indices

“…LOWESS regression or Locally Weighted Scatterplot Smoothing can create a smooth line to show variable relationships when linear or logistic regressions are deemed inapplicable. Some research about the policy stringency index in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States suggest that SI and COVID-19 cases follow a loess (or lowess) curve (72). On the other hand, Hale et al (73) used Lowess regression to identify the waves of COVID-19 cases in India, the United States, and South Africa.…”

The Pandemic Policy U-Turn: Partisanship, Public Health, and Race in Decisions to Ease COVID-19 Social Distancing Policies in the United States

“…Partisan resistance to scientific advice, as well as systematic disregard for the disparate impacts of epidemics on marginalized communities, means federal coordination may arrive too late, do too little, or fail to occur at all. Although some federal systems like Germany managed to coordinate policy successfully, other countries that combined presidential federalism with populist leadership, such as Mexico and Brazil, also failed to coordinate social distancing policies across regions; as in the United States, their failure appears to be the result of pressure on state executives from populist presidents (Bennouna et al 2020).…”

Lessons from Brazil's unsuccessful fiscal decentralization policy to fight COVID‐19

“…However, during the COVID‐19 pandemic, such a feature could be considered a weakness (Bennouna et al., 2021 ). The constitution of federative countries combines and segregates responsibilities among levels of government.…”