How Federations Responded to Covid-19

Countries with a federal form of government responded in distinctive ways to the health and economic crises caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Constitutional INSIGHTS No.7 explores what can be learned from this experience about the purposes, design and operation of federations, including for the division and allocation of powers and fiscal resources; collaboration and cooperation between levels of government; and the challenges of democratic accountability. It builds on an earlier brief on Implementing Federalism (Constitutional INSIGHTS No.2) that examines some of these issues in a non-Covid context.