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School of Business and Management

Research Seminar Series: Reflecting on a year of pandemic public management

When: Wednesday, February 10, 2021 - Tuesday, February 16, 2021, 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM
Where: Online

The seminar will present a collection of insights from recent studies by members of the Public Management and Regulation cluster.

Professor Colin Haslam will discuss how the UK’s acute hospital and public laboratory systems were a ‘normal accident’ waiting to happen at the early stages of the pandemic due to fragility built into the system. This unintentional fragility was caused by a combination of long-term funding shortages, the stretching of physical resources and a process that political scientists call hyper-innovation.  

Professor Martin Laffin will discuss how the pandemic policy response was constrained by inter-governmental relations. Central policymakers tightly controlled Covid-19 policy through a new centralised, outsourced test and trace delivery chain. Only after serious problems persisted with the centralised approach did central policymakers begin to work seriously with local authorities. 

Dr Stella Ladi will discuss the role of expertise in pandemic policy decisions based on the project “Global Government Approaches to Evidence in Combatting Covid-19”. Two key questions emerge: (1) whether a particular model of integrating expertise into policy-making has led to more successful government policies and (2) whether the use of evidence in policy making affected citizens’ trust. 

Professor Gary Schwarz will present findings from a study on the role of volunteers and their effective deployment during the pandemic. Data gathered through China’s leading digital volunteering platform and interviews with civil society leaders demonstrate the key role of experienced local volunteers and the importance of state-led coproduction based on long-term relationships. 

Dr Panos Panagiotopoulos will introduce and coordinate the discussion. 

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