MANAGING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN AUSTRIA: From national unity to a de facto unitary state?

Abstract

This chapter explores whether Austria’s federal dispensation on the whole helped or hindered the management of the pandemic during the first period of its Covid-19 response. Its approach is to blend law and political science perspectives, which is key to a holistic understanding of how federalism impacted on the fight against the coronavirus. This chapter starts with a brief overview of the constitutional and legal framework for how Austria’s multiple levels of government respond to emergencies, as well as of the institutional framework for disaster preparedness. It then goes on to analyse the Covid-19 measures taken by local governments, the Länder, and the national government and their intergovernmental relations, not least in financial terms, during the management of the pandemic. The central argument of this chapter is that - after early national unity - Austria’s brand of ‘pandemic federalism’ oscillated between dynamics typical of a de facto unitary state, on the one hand, and attempts towards more autonomy and differentiation, on the other.