The Response to COVID-19 by the Italian Populist Government: Is It Populism or Neo-Liberalism That Makes the Response to the Pandemic Inadequate?

Leila Simona Talani and Fabiana De Bellis
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Leila Simona Talani: International Political Economy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Public Policy, King’s College London, London WC2R 2LS, UK
Fabiana De Bellis: Independent Researcher, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland

Social Sciences, 2021, vol. 10, issue 9, 1-13

Abstract: The COVID-19 crisis caused unprecedented disruption in terms of human losses, economic damages, social isolation, and general malaise. It seems that, although the advice of the scientific communities to adopt rigorous measures of track and tracing, mass testing, and lock down was often considered at odds with economic performance, eventually it was precisely that kind of advice that avoided the economic debacle. This article will try and find out the reasons why Italy was more efficient and effective in implementing the measures suggested by national and transnational scientific communities. The article will do so by answering the following questions: (1) What are the political determinants of the different state responses to the pandemic? (2) Why have epistemic communities’ receipts to exit the COVID-19 crisis been ignored in some countries to follow a misguided economic logic? (3) Has the state response to the crisis anything to do with the importance of neo-liberalism and neo-liberal forces in the organization of the economy or have populist countries been less efficient than others as suggested in the recent literature on the subject?

Keywords: COVID-19 response; populism; neo-liberalism; Italy; epistemic communities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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