Decentralization: A handicap in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic? The response of the regional governments in Spain

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided an ultimate testing ground for evaluating the resilience and effectiveness of federal and decentralized systems. The article analyses how the Spanish asymmetrical system of decentralization has responded to the pandemic, focusing on the management developed by the sub-central governments (Autonomous Communities) during the first two waves of the pandemic in 2020. The research, which is both quantitative and qualitative, employs multidisciplinary tools and information sources, analyzing and linking fiscal and budgetary sources with the available statistics and information on health. Although the health, economic and social crisis caused by COVID-19 has highlighted appreciable shortcomings related to the decentralized model of territorial organization – in questions of both regional financing and health management – the research concludes that decentralization has not per se been a handicap when confronting the pandemic in Spain.