Crisis management and/or resilience of local self-governments

Review

Abstract

The article discusses the literature on resilience from the point of view of governance and decentralization. Although resilience is not a new term, an interdisciplinary approach has gained growing momentum during the last years producing a large number of scientific literature and public policy analyses. The COVID-19 pandemic has strengthened the position of resilience based public policies, which is a serious challenge for the governments at the global and national and local levels. Based on the literature on COVID management in Central and Eastern Europe, the review discusses the formation of the term of resilience, its implications for governance, dilemmas of centralization/decentralization, and changes in multi-level governance. The review indicates that centralization trends are strong, cutbacks affecting self-governments, and the lack of information undermined the cooperation of various governance levels. Similarly, the global level did not get a strong role in crisis management, since national governments were reluctant to engage in cooperation with international organisations.

An important lesson is that the good quality of governance could contribute to the successful management of crises. Furthermore, in order to avoid the exclusive use of extreme measures in times of emergency, it is necessary to incorporate the preparation for crises into the functioning of governments at the systemic level. The incorporation of special knowledge, planning and processes into the governance model is a challenge for governance reforms, though it is necessary to avoid ad hoc, extraordinary governance measures. The literature review emphasises the advantages of decentralization and the necessity of resilient societal support as a general context of good governance.

Our research results indicate that the management of the pandemic in Hungary was centralized and based on extraordinary improvisation. On the other hand, local governments were also unprepared, which contributes to the modest ranking of Hungarian governance performance in crisis management.