What's Going On?
Type
Book chapterAbstract
For a crisis to be effectively governed, it must first be noticed, interpreted, understood and assessed. This chapter explores how policymakers ‘made sense’ of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on: (1) how policymakers around the world detected the developing threat as it emerged first in China and then in Italy; (2) the prominent involvement of scientific expertise in government sense-making processes (and in narratives about those processes). We discuss the complex dynamics between experts, decision-makers and publics that ensued.For a crisis to be effectively governed, it must first be noticed, interpreted, understood and assessed. This chapter explores how policymakers ‘made sense’ of the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. We focus on: (1) how policymakers around the world detected the developing threat as it emerged first in China and then in Italy; (2) the prominent involvement of scientific expertise in government sense-making processes (and in narratives about those processes). We discuss the complex dynamics between experts, decision-makers and publics that ensued.
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Date
2021Share