Federalism under Pressure

Abstract

This chapter poses three questions: first, how did the federal systems under review respond to the pandemic - what were the modalities of the response and their effect on centralisation or decentralisation processes? Secondly, how well (or badly) did the federal systems fare in combating the pandemic? Were the systems robust enough to cope with the challenge? Thirdly, will the manner in which the systems responded - the changes brought about to federal dynamics - have a lasting impact? The 19 case studies show that most federal systems became more centralised in response to the pandemic, but not uniformly or continuously so. Intergovernmental relations were often inadequate or non-existent. The increased dependence of subnational governments on federal transfers also had a centralising effect. Some federations were resilient enough to deal effectively with the pandemic, but in many other failures occurred in their federal system, leading to poor outcomes. Finally, Covid-19 might be a catalyst in some countries for greater decentralisation, particularly in the field of fiscal federalism. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Nico Steytler.