Institutional Polycentrism and Community Resilience: Evidence From The COVID-19 Crisis In The U.S.

Abstract

Communities expect crises to occur, like natural disasters, man-made disasters, complex emergencies, and pandemic events, which is why many communities create institutions to inform individuals against potential harm and protect local resources from contamination or depletion. Differences in how communities govern local institutions in response to crisis remains an understudied component of the community resilience literature. Institutional governance in this context refers to how communities develop strategies and make decisions in a system of related organizations. Using an institutional polycentric framework, we analyze how institutional governance affects community resilience during an unexpected crisis. We then investigate our theoretical framework empirically using the context of the spread of the novel Coronavirus in January 2020. Differences in public health governance exist across counties in the U.S. with regards to the centralization of public health decision-making. While some states give more autonomy to local governments and private entities, other states maintain decision-making power at the state-level. Our results show that counties under decentralized governance arrangements observe less cases and deaths related to COVID-19, while counties under centralized arrangements see an increase in cases. This result can be explained by the timing of emergency declarations issued across counties, as decentralized counties have the authority to issue public health orders sooner than centralized institutions, who must wait for direction from the state. As we think about communities facing unexpected crisis in the future, our results offer novel insight into the how differences in governance structure across institutions contributes to their ability to manage uncertainty, which can have serious consequences for community health and the protection of local public goods.