Does Federalism Prevent Democratic Accountability? Assigning Responsibility for Rates of COVID-19 Testing

Area of Science:

• Political Science
• Public Policy
• Canadian Politics

Background:

• Federal systems present challenges to democratic accountability.
• Citizen motivation to hold governments accountable is high during crises like pandemics.
• Exclusivity, or policy variation within a government level, is a key factor in accountability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the impact of federalism on democratic accountability during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• To examine how policy variation at the provincial level affects public accountability assessments in Canada.
• To determine if Canadians can assign responsibility for pandemic response to the correct level of government.

Main Methods:

• Utilized original data from the May 2020 Democratic Checkup Survey.
• Incorporated public data from the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory.
• Analyzed the correlation between interprovincial policy variation in coronavirus testing and public perceptions of testing adequacy.

Main Results:

• Preliminary findings indicate no correlation between interprovincial policy variation in coronavirus testing and public assessments of provincial testing adequacy.
• Canadians did not appear to differentiate or assign responsibility based on provincial policy differences.
• Despite ideal conditions, federalism complicated accountability during the pandemic.

Conclusions:

• Federalism may hinder citizens' ability to hold governments accountable, even under high-salience conditions.
• Policy variation alone does not enable citizens to assign responsibility in a federal system.
• Further research is needed to understand accountability mechanisms in federal democracies during crises.