Uncoordinated federalism: Subnational response to the pandemic crisis in Mexico

Abstract

The COVID‐19 pandemic has demanded prompt actions from governments all over the world. In both developed and developing countries, national governments have had to make unprecedented decisions to face the extraordinary challenges posed by the pandemic. In this paper, we explore how, due to the limited intervention from the Mexican federal government (in terms of policy actions, funding mechanisms and acting as a coordinating agent), state governments stepped up to respond to the pandemic. We argue that Mexico's response was relatively decentralized and substantially shaped by individual subnational governments. Based on a new dataset of over 600 subnational governments' responses to the social and economic effects of the pandemic, we show that state governments decided to react to the pandemic with their own policy measures, responding locally to pressing concerns. Furthermore, we demonstrate that state government responses varied widely in their scope and ambition, which exacerbated the pandemic's uneven national effects. We further contend that the structural constraints of Mexico's federalism have had an impact on these reactions, as social policy responsibilities at the state and local levels have historically been opaque and fragmented and state governments lack the funding necessary to implement sufficient and innovative initiatives.

How perceived risks in interorganizational collaboration shape disaster response strategies

“…This complexity arises from the interdependency among organizations, which necessitates that each assumes responsibility and incurs additional costs to achieve shared goals (Song, 2016). The costs of developing an agreement between two partners can be relatively high, and the amount incurred from entering into a shared arrangement can vary by organization (Cejudo & Gómez‐Álvarez, 2023; Hatley, 2010). The complexity of organizing common goals and allocating tasks among potential partners is another risk when it comes to establishing interorganizational collaborative relationships.…”

“…Collective motivations or the desires of an organization and its partner to activate networking are crucial factors in creating interorganizational arrangements (Cejudo & Gómez‐Álvarez, 2023; Jarimo et al., 2006; Ryu, 2014; Xin & Chen, 2023). Collaboration risks emerge in this interconnectedness, and are recognized as a cost; hence, being involved in interorganizational arrangements is not always an ideal strategy for every organization (Batley & Rose, 2011).…”

“…Emergency management serves as a suitable testbed for exploring this hypothesis. Networked collective action involving diverse participants under a fragmented government system is required to respond quickly and effectively to unexpected situations (Cejudo & Gómez‐Álvarez, 2023; Chan et al., 2019). In this scenario, organizations may not have the luxury of thoroughly searching for the best partners, resulting in heightened total collaboration risks being perceived by potential partners due to the uncertainty of the potential commitment of collaborators, with a more critical impact on collaborative arrangements (Song, 2016).…”

“…A single government entity is incapable of delivering an adequate degree of public service when addressing complex issues commonly referred to as 'wicked problems' (Feiock & Shrestha, 2016; Silvia, 2011). To address these challenges, local governments often find solutions by collaborating with other such institutions (Cejudo & Gómez‐Álvarez, 2023; Rittel & Webber, 1973; Ryu & Johansen, 2017), which enables them, for example, to increase their potential resource capacity (Chen, 2008) and ability to handle such challenges. Governments, therefore, have a strong incentive to establish partnerships with other governments or organizations (Huang et al., 2023; Smoke et al., 2023).…”

“…Extant research argues that collaboration risk must be seriously taken into consideration in developing the discourse of organizational collective action (Brown & Potoski, 2003; Carr et al., 2017; Feiock et al., 2017; Song et al., 2020). Nevertheless, the role of collaboration risk, specifically the perceived risk of collaboration, has been scarcely analyzed, not to mention its application to the context of EM (Cejudo & Gómez‐Álvarez, 2023; Song et al., 2018; Xin & Chen, 2023). In addition, even scholarship that stresses the importance of collaboration risks in interorganizational relationships somehow has neglected the impact of risk perceptions between collaborators with regard to actual collaboration practices, and subsequent empirical assessments are rare.…”