Germany’s Corona Crisis: The State of Emergency and Policy (Mis)learning

Abstract

This article analyzes Germany’s policy-making in response to the Corona crisis between January 2020 and March 2021. Two theoretical perspectives are advanced. The first concerns how the government’s imposition of a ‘state of emergency’ affects liberal democratic policy-making resulting in the closure of deliberation in favor of top-down imposition. The second perspective looks at different types of policy learning under crisis conditions. The central thesis is that Germany’s emergency regime failed to facilitate effective policy-making since it closed down venues in which policy learning could occur. Thus, the state of emergency combined authoritarianism and inefficiency. A variety of explanations are advanced to clarify causes for the sluggishness of the German federal, regional, and local government levels to meet Corona-related challenges.