Damned if you, damned if you don’t

The politics of pandemic preparation as a grand challenge

Bibliographic Data

ID9963162
AuthorsCatherine Moury (0000-0001-5405-1493, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Olivier Jacques (0000-0002-3864-1773, Université de Montréal, corresponding author), Emna Ben Jelili (École de santé publique, Université de Montréal, Canada)
Year2025
Publication date2025-06-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Review of Administrative Sciences (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-8523 • E-ISSN: 1461-7226
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00208523251342676
OpenAlexW4411616570
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited41

In this article, we shed light on the politics of preparation for a pandemic. We show why the existing literature fails to explain the puzzling case of France, which became one the best prepared countries in the world, only to discontinue its efforts to find itself unprepared when COVID hit. To investigate what happened, we conduct a qualitative process-tracing analysis of pandemic preparation efforts for two decades. From this, we induce the causal mechanisms at work during this period and we develop new insights on adverse events preparation and mitigation. Our main contribution is to conceptualize pandemic preparation as an insurance which would reduce future costs only in certain conditions. Given this particularity, we contend that governments take significant electoral risks when they engage in such an endeavour. If preparation is successful, it is likely to remain largely invisible and bring no electoral credit. If in contrast, the feared event does not happen or if its effects have been overestimated, a mechanism of blame generation for having wasted public money will be at play. Finally, if governments discontinue preparation and the dreaded event occurs, they will be blamed (again) for this discontinuation. Hence, governments risk being blamed twice when engaging in pandemic preparation, which explains why governments rarely prepare enough

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Evaluation and Performance Assessment · Law · Medicine · Policy Transfer and Learning · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research