The Covid-19 pandemic is a classic example of a complex, transnational crisis. Due to growing globalization, such crises will, in the future, become an increasingly frequent phenomenon and must be properly addressed. Managing complex crises requires specific government solutions that can be offered by an appropriate model of multi-level governance. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze, through the theory of multilevel governance, how Canada, China, and Slovenia within the EU, designed and implemented public regulatory policies between 2020 and 2021, while also addressing the reasons that determined their success. Using combined research methods, we conducted a comprehensive study of three cases, which we further deepened with a comparative analysis. We conclude that the Chinese model has proven to be the most successful, and the country's political and institutional framework played an important role in this. More centralized governance, with clearly defined strategies for responding to epidemics, where policymaking takes place at all levels of governance and connections work in all directions simultaneously, gives China a key advantage for a successful response. Compared to Canada and the EU, where the decisions of the lower levels were much more autonomous and the highest level operated mainly through softer forms of governance whilst power was concentrated at the middle level of governance, the analysis shows that in times of crises, structured forms of governance are more appropriate.
The thesis points out key weaknesses and strengths of individual multi-level governance systems during Covid-19 management and highlights proposals that can be of help to public policy makers in establishing new governance strategies in the event of a pandemic outbreak. The limitations of our research relate primarily to the lack of statistical analysis that could better explain the correlation between the policy making process and regulations impact.
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