Pandemics and Public Value

Abstract

Purpose: This article explores a conceptualization of public value as good governance in the interests of those who are governed, the aggregation of these individual interests, and the legitimate and peaceful reconciliation of conflicts of interest in times of pandemics. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed additional challenges to those who govern across all these aspects of provision of public value. In a great many instances, these governance challenges have not adequately been met. The article further, therefore, addresses in each instance the impact of COVID-19 on the normative requirements of good governance, then upon the policy requirements, and finally upon the practical implementation of measures to promote public value. Method: This research project used a qualitative approach consisting of literature review and document analysis. The results of this study should be supplemented by quantitative and qualitative studies in the future. The literature review consists of a comprehensive assessment of scholarly academic publications from competing perspectives in the fields of political philosophy, public administration and international relations. The document survey is mainly related to the policy documentation output of national governments and international organizations, as well as media reports. Result: The research identifies how the COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated the divide between competing governance perspectives at the epistemological, ontological, and practical levels. Specifically, it demonstrates that the pandemic has further complicated the aggregation of different values and the reconciliation of conflicts between those who hold them. Conclusion: Those who govern have an obligation to govern in the interests of those who are governed - to provide value to the public. The interests of different individuals and groups are often, however, conflictual. Thus, a second governance function is that of aggregation of individual interests to provide a comprehensive policy platform representing public value. The third function revolves around the practical implementation of legitimate measures to facilitate the peaceful reconciliation of conflicting interests. The COVID-19 pandemic has made these public value governance functions and obligations harder to fulfil. The reconciliation of different understandings of public value and their aggregation into a coherent policy platform has proved particularly challenging. This paper concludes with ways in which those who govern can reconceptualize their obligations to bring about a degree of reconciliation.