Is it all about the government's early response? A configurational analysis of 27 cases in governing COVID-19 in China

Abstract

Governance and policy authors are concerned with the effectiveness of crisis management. In this study, the effectiveness of 27 Chinese provinces in addressing COVID-19 is examined using the QCA approach. The contribution identifies four pathways for explaining effective crisis management and two for explaining ineffective crisis management. Strong analytical capacity is a relatively critical condition for achieving effective crisis management. This study contributes to the existing governance and policy literature through uncovering the mechanisms underlying effective crisis management.