Responding to COVID-19: The Case of Spain

This paper examines the governance of the COVID-19 crisis in Spain. The main thesis is that the central reason for the pandemic's devastating outcomes was the relatively poor governance of the crisis as manifested by the country's lack of preparedness and its slow and delayed response. If we measure the three dimensions of governance (Mimicopoulos 2006), Spain came way short in efficiency: The lack of predictability in the institutional and policy environment hurt the response to the pandemic; in transparency: The lack of available and reliable data and the absence of information provided to the general public deeply undermined confidence and trust in the government as well adequate rand timely responses to the pandemic; and finally, in participation: The government rarely encouraged public input into decision making and failed to engage the opposition in a timely and constructive way.