COVID-19 as a Catalyst for Policy Change: The Role of Trigger Points and Spillover Effects

ABSTRACT This article understands COVID-19 as an eruptive event with severe effects on many policy fields beyond (public) health. Based on this assumption, we consider the pandemic as a catalyst for policy change across policy fields. For that reason, we suggest a new approach for conceptualising eruptive events as triggers that provoke far-reaching change and spillover effects in fields of policymaking. These are characterised by a complex problem structure – conceived of as clusters of trigger points – in need of intersectoral policymaking. Our approach suggests a mechanism of multi-dimensional spillover that initiates new dynamics to gridlocked policy processes by acting with regard to the most pressing trigger points. To test the concept, we take an explorative look at public health, educational policy and food and agricultural policy in Germany. The examples demonstrate how the concept of problem-related trigger points and spillover effects can be applied to analyse policy change across policy areas in pandemic times and beyond.