Policing the Pandemic

The rapid outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response measures taken against it, have been an immense shock to normal routines in societies across the world. The need for immediate action by a complex group of actors such as government actors, medical professionals, or the police has shown the limits of traditional chains of command, checks and balances, and the processes of law-making and implementation. Despite fundamental differences between countries, as well as the development of the pandemic around the globe, a near universal reaction has been the use of police as a central role in pandemic response. In many ways, the COVID-19 pandemic may have caused what can be called the first truly global policing event. The rapid mobilization of police, however, also has led to a number of significant challenges. Hurried implementations of countermeasures have, at times, violated fundamental rights of citizens. Imprecise laws have granted and relied on greater police discretion. This gives individual police officers a broader scope in deciding about what and how to use sanctions to enforce COVID-19 measures. Police discretion can lead to insecurity and confusion amongst citizens. The specific role assigned to police during the COVID-19 pandemic and the problems occurring, thereby raise questions about the structural (in)efficacy of addressing a health crisis by means of policing. Finally, the very process of policing the pandemic may have revealed limits to the democratic repertoire of action itself. The POLIPA-project will conduct a broad investigation of the practices of chains-of-command and checks-and-balances, and the limits thereof in times of crisis. These practices are the foundation of the relationship between democratic governance, law-making and policing. This will include the study of response strategies and communication by the government, a (legal-)analysis of laws, statuary orders and law-making processes, as well as the investigation of internal organizational dynamics in the Austrian police in the context of practices of policing the pandemic. A central, cross-cutting element of this approach will be the investigation of how the interaction between (and within) these spheres changed over time, from the early stages of rapid response to the ongoing normalization of procedures in the pandemic over time. Understanding and differentiating between limits to democratic action that are caused, or merely revealed by the pandemic, is important for the potential improvement of democratic crisis response in the future.