ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented international event. The spread of the coronavirus – the biggest public health crisis in a century and the first of this scale in the globalized modern world – has prompted unparalleled responses by national governments. While, in most federal countries, the constitutional power to deal with national disasters or emergencies resides with the federal government, the delivery of health services is often the remit of constituent units, such as states, provinces, and cantons, as well as local governments. Thus, responding to the public health and economic crisis brought on by the pandemic has required policy interventions at the level of federal governments as well as constituent units. The pandemic has clearly raised questions about the effectiveness of the governance response to the crisis in federal countries. This touches on issues such as the roles and responsibilities of various orders of government and the adequacy of existing institutions and processes of intergovernmental relations.
