Governing in a Polarized Era

Federalism and the Response of U.S. State and Federal Governments to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Bibliographic Data

ID7364141
AuthorsTom Birkland (0000-0003-3073-8471, North Carolina State University), Kristin Taylor (0000-0003-4809-4846, Wayne State University), Deserai A Crow (0000-0003-2078-3607, University of Colorado Denver), Rob A Deleo, Rob Deleo (0000-0003-0448-6901, Bentley University)
Year2021
Volume51
Issue4
Pages650-672
Publication date2021-05-28
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePublius The Journal of Federalism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0048-5950 • E-ISSN: 1747-7107
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/publius/pjab024
OpenAlexW3195077930
LanguageEN
Citations received31
References cited35

How does the state of American federalism explain responses to COVID-19? State-by-state variations to the COVID-19 pandemic illustrate the political dynamics of “kaleidoscopic federalism,” under which there is no single prevailing principle of federalism. In the COVID-19 pandemic, features of kaleidoscopic federalism combined with shortcomings in the public health system under the Trump administration, leading to fragmented responses to the pandemic among the states. Federalism alone does not explain the shortcomings of the United States’ response to the pandemic. Rather, the fragmented response was driven by state partisanship, which shaped state public health interventions and resulted in differences in public health outcomes. This has sobering implications for American federalism because state-level partisan differences yield different and unequal responses to the pandemic

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Federalism · Pandemic · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public health · Sociology · State (computer science · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Medicine · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Health Policies and Education · Law · Public Administration

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