COVID-19 CRISIS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM’S RESPONSE IN SOUTHEAST EUROPEAN ECONOMIES: A CAS FRAMEWORK

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the world in 2020 and it has been recognized as the biggest stress test in the history of the European Union. The pandemic is inflicting high and rising human costs worldwide, and the necessary protection measures are severely impacting economic activity. As a result of the pandemic, the global economy had been projected to contract sharply by –3 percent in 2020, which is much worse than during the 2008– 09 Global financial crisis. In these difficult and challenging times, countries and societies need to adapt to the new situation while minimizing the negative social and economic implications. This paper discusses how different governments in the South East Europe region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) have managed and dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic. A review of the current literature on COVID-19 is conducted. This paper should enable a better understanding of how different governments have faced the pandemic and how and to which extent they facilitated a proactive and timely approach towards crisis management. The objective of this study is to theorize a CAS (Complex Adaptive System) framework to evaluate the prevention, preparedness, response and crisis management and strategies used during the pandemic and assess the steps taken so far by the selected Southeast European transitional countries for tackling the COVID-19 crisis up to September 2020.