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.

The COVID pandemic was characterized by numerous short-term legal regulations. Vague or highly controversial regulations made life difficult for the police, who were ultimately responsible for their enforcement. They had to cope with the constant influx of new legal norms while maintaining a reasonable level of discretion in their application. Researchers at the Vienna Centre for Socio-Scientific Security Research (VICESSE) are investigating how this interplay between politics, administrative authorities, and police execution functioned during the exceptional situation of the pandemic as part of the FWF-funded project "Police in Pandemic Management" (POLIPA). Politics, administration, and the police are the control instruments of a democratic constitutional state. The POLIPA project aimed to examine how this system functioned in detail during a real crisis, where the state apparatus had to react quickly. The pandemic not only revealed weaknesses in handling emergency situations but also demonstrated how quickly the limits of democratically legitimized action can be reached. Decrees are essentially administrative regulations directed at subordinate authorities. Together with ordinances, which are also issued by administrative authorities, they were the central tools of federal ministries for rapidly responding to the pandemic. Actual laws, on the other hand, would have required approval from the National Council. The output of decrees and ordinances from ministries was immense and, in some cases, led to violations of fundamental rights. The project attempted to reconstruct the dynamics triggered by this type of pandemic governance. The study analyzed available legal documents and a vast number of media reports from the pandemic years, reconstructing the pandemic's course from a legal and administrative perspective using a timeline. The researchers conducted dozens of interviews with police officers, Red Cross members, and representatives of state and federal administrations. Focus group discussions were used to deepen the inquiries and provide practical insights into the interaction between different authorities during the pandemic years. One of the findings was that the police themselves faced significant challenges due to the pandemic. The polarization of society regarding vaccination status extended into police stations as well. At the same time, as an organization accustomed to routine, the police found it difficult to swiftly transition into crisis mode, which was characterized by nearly daily-changing regulations. The expectations of politicians and the capabilities of the police were often far apart. In some cases, higher authorities even refrained from passing decrees down to police stations to avoid further uncertainty among officers. Many officers developed a self-conception that they needed to carry out their duties based more on their own judgment, applying "common sense and sound discretion." The unclear situation gave officers an unusually large margin for discretion. Regulations and pragmatic actions, adapted to local circumstances, increasingly diverged.