Governance functions failure in response to the Covid-19: the case of social isolation in Brazil

Abstract

The new coronavirus pandemic required governments to position themselves in an efficient and integrated way to reduce the number of infections and, consequently, deaths in their territories. In Brazil, the asynchrony between the central government and subnational entities concerning the conduct of Covid-19 has become latent, mainly due to the federal government’s non-agreement in applying the non-pharmaceutical recommendations identified by the World Health Organization. Therefore, this article aimed to characterize possible failures in governance functions related to the social isolation adoption during the first wave of Covid-19 in Brazil, with an analysis focus on the federal government. Regarding the method, process tracing was used to descriptively infer such gaps from the data collected. As a result, failures were found in all governance functions, demonstrating that the implementation of social isolation was hampered in the country.