How Well Do They Manage a Crisis? The Government's Effectiveness During the COVID‐19 Pandemic

• Published date: 01 November 2021
• Author: Shlomo Mizrahi,Eran Vigoda‐Gadot,Nissim Cohen
• Date: 01 November 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13370

Research Article

1120 Public Administration Review • November | D ecember 2 021

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlighted the importance of effective crisis management and its

relationship with citizens’ willingness to cooperate with the government in such turbulent times. We develop a theory

and hypotheses about the impact of citizens’ experiences on their perceptions of the government’s effectiveness during

times of crisis. We do so with data collected at two points in time: in late March 2020 during the first peak of the

COVID-19 crisis in Israel, and in October 2020 when Israel was exiting from a second lockdown. The findings

demonstrate that during crises citizens focus on the short term and seek immediate results in terms of readiness

and preparedness. During such times, the government’s responsiveness and transparency, as well as the public’s

participation in decisions, seem even more important than their trust in the government. Implications and practical

recommendations follow.

Evidence for Practice

• In times of crisis, public officials and policy makers are expected to become more responsive to the public by

demonstrating fairness and transparency in decisions and trying to include citizens in these decisions.

• The public sector should invest in providing ongoing, quality services at all times, because citizens’

satisfaction with public services contributes to effective crisis management.

• Governments should improve the managerial skills of emergency organizations, particularly with regard to

the readiness and flexibility of healthcare organizations, which are at the forefront of handling crises.

Major crises such as pandemics may be

inevitable. However, social resilience and

the response of the government determine

the scope, magnitude, and impact of such crises on our

lives. The COVID-19 pandemic clearly highlighted

the importance of effective emergency management, as

well as its connection with the willingness of citizens

to cooperate with governments in such turbulent times

(Boin, Ekengren, and Rhinard 2020a; Christensen

and Lægreid 2020). Once again, it made clear that

trust between governments and the people is vital

to the functioning of our modern society (Robinson

et al. 2020). The legitimacy of government to make

and implement effective policies that minimize the

damage to the democratic system, its economy, and

public health is strongly related to the attitudes of

citizens toward these policies. This study focuses

on these attitudes and suggests a model that may

help us explain perceptions about the government’s

effectiveness during a crisis.

The literature on crisis management defines a crisis

as composed of three main components: great danger

to people lives, uncertainty, and urgency (Rosenthal,

Charles, and t’ Hart 1989, 10). Although this

literature views crises as primarily social phenomena,

it tends to underestimate citizens’ views regarding

the effectiveness of crisis management and the

factors that may influence these evaluations (Boin,

Hart, and Kuipers 2018, 27). Our goal is to fill

this gap by integrating rationales from the areas of

public management, policy evaluation, and crisis

management and propose an integrative, testable

model that explains citizens’ perceptions about the

effectiveness of the government’s crisis management

during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is clear that effective crisis management should try

to reduce risks and minimize costs for society. We

suggest that citizens’ evaluations of the government’s

response to such crises are crucial for building

trust between the players, which later promotes

the willingness to comply with and participate in

government efforts to handle the issues that the

crises bring in their wake (Boin, Ekengren, and

Rhinard 2020a; Robinson et al. 2020). Hence, our

research question is: What factors explain citizens’

evaluations of the government’s effectiveness in

handling the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis it

triggered in Israel?

Shlomo Mizrahi

Eran Vigoda-Gadot

Nissim Cohen

University of Haifa

How Well Do They Manage a Crisis? The Government’s

Effectiveness During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Nissim Cohen is an Associate a Professor

of Public Administration and Management

at the School of Political Science, University

of Haifa. His research interests include

interactions between politicians and

bureaucrats, public budgeting, street level

bureaucracy, policy entrepreneurship, and

the social and health policy.

Email: nissimco@gmail.com

Eran Vigoda-Gadot is a Professor of

Public Administration and Management at

the School of Political Science, University of

Haifa. He served as Head of the School and

as Dean of the Paul and Herta Amir Faculty

of Social Sciences. Founder of the Center

for Public Management and Policy (CPMP)

and an author and coauthor of more

than 200 articles, books, and many other

publications and working papers in the

field of public management, organizational

behavior, governance, and human resource

management.

Email: eranv@poli.haifa.ac.il

Shlomo Mizrahi is a Professor in the

Department of Public Administration and

Policy, School of Political Science, University

of Haifa, Israel. Research Interests: public

policy, public sector and NPM, political

behavior, the welfare state, regulation

and privatization, public choice and game

theory, collective action and interest groups,

institutional change, bargaining and conflict

resolution.

Email: shlomom@poli.haifa.ac.il

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 81, Iss. 6, pp. 1120–1130. © 2021 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13370.