Non-centralized Coordination during a Transboundary Crisis

Abstract

Abstract The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 presented the world with a major issue requiring collective action to appropriately address. Contrasting non-centralization with administrative coordination and centralization as approaches to collective action in federal systems, this chapter examines the decision-making and coordination of freedom of movement policies during the first nine months of the pandemic to understand what coordination arrangements arose in four different federal systems (Australia, Canada, the European Union [EU], and the United States). The comparison highlights the continued importance of regional governments to policymaking in federal systems, the value of the European Commission as both a coordinator and negotiator for policymaking, and the potential that Australia has as a comparator for the EU. It concludes that the development of New Intergovernmentalism has not simply undermined the role of supranational institutions in the EU, but rather the intergovernmental institutions working with the supranational ones have created new dynamics that may be disempowering in one way and empowering in another way for supranational institutions.