Abstract
This study investigates how the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic affect local government politicians’ policy preferences in The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Spain. The study examines to what extent politicians prefer increasing the role of government (directive state), transferring public tasks to private sector organizations (hollow state), transferring public tasks to third sector organizations (communitarian state), or downsizing and reducing the role of government without transferring tasks (coping state). The experiment primes decision‐makers on the pandemic’s negative economic prospects vis‐à‐vis its impact on health and wellbeing. When negative economic prospects are emphasized, the study finds decreased preferences for a directive state and increased preferences for a coping state. The study concludes that how decision‐makers interpret the nature of a crisis determines their preferred response: an emphasis on the negative economic prospects of the COVID‐19 pandemic is likely to increase preferences for renewed policies of austerity.
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