Policy preferences in response to negative economic prospects of COVID‐19: A survey‐experiment among local politicians in four European countries
通过调查实验，研究了荷兰、英国、瑞士和西班牙的地方政治家在COVID-19负面经济前景下，对政府角色（指令型、空心型、社区型或应对型）的政策偏好变化。
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 financial and economic prospects vis-à-vis its impact on health and well-being. 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.