Intergovernmental relations in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic: X-ray of habitat management in a federal setting (Greater Buenos Aires Agglomeration, Argentina)

In Argentina, during the year 2020, the National Government has implemented numerous and varied assistance, containment and promotion initiatives in key public policy sectors to respond to the crisis unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Likewise, provincial and local governments launched their own initiatives to support those emanating from the central level and facilitate the implementation and adaptation of national initiatives in their territories. The citizens, for their part, have adapted to, used or resisted the guidelines and proposals of the executives of the different levels of government. The pandemic scenario (in its different phases) exposes the tension between a centralized logic - typical of the design of initiatives aimed at responding to an emergency - and multilevel governance at a time when it is impossible to ignored that crisis contexts, such as the one imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, strongly stress the relations between the different levels of government and between these and the citizenry. In this context, this paper focuses on intergovernmental relations and examines the initiatives, devices and instruments mobilized by the different levels of government to respond to urban issues in general and housing needs in particular, in the pandemic context, focusing on the initiatives that had habitat and housing as a privileged axis of intervention. The work is based on the analysis of regulations and press material. It also draws on in-depth interviews with public officials and agents from different governmental levels. It presents the composition of the political organization of the Greater Buenos Aires Agglomerate and the political-institutional relations between thedifferent levels of government, as well as a characterization of the focal points for intervention, devices and instruments that made public interventions feasible (especially in the National Government, the Government of the City of Buenos Aires and the Government of the Province of Buenos Aires). To conclude, the paper focuses on territorially-based experiences in order to account for the initiatives from a bottom-up perspective.

1. Alonso, Guillermo V., Ricardo A. Gutiérrez, Gabriela Merlinsky. “Federalism and Municipal Policies in Buenos Aires Suburbs: Interjurisdictional Coordination Challenges in Two Study Cases: Avellaneda and San Martin.”Géstion y Política Pública 25, no. 2 (2016): 483–523.

2. Benítez, Joaquin, M. C. Cravino. “Gobernanza, ciudadanía degradada e informalidad urbana en la respuesta al COVID-19 en barrios populares de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA).” Revista de Políticas Sociales Urbanas 8 (2021): 1–31.

3. Chiara, Magdalena. La salud gobernada. La Política Sanitaria en la Argentina 2001–2011. Los Polvorines: Ediciones UNGS, 2018.

4. Chiara, Magdalena, María Merced Di Virgilio. “Tensiones y dilemas en torno a la Gestión Local en Salud en el Gran Buenos Aires.” In Gestión Local en Salud: conceptos y experiencias, edited by M. Chiara, M. M. Di Virgilio, A.Medina, and M. Miraglia, 143–172. UNGS, 2008.

5. Di Virgilio, María Mercedes, and M. C. Rodríguez. “Vivienda, hábitat y marginalidad residencial.” In La Argentina en el Siglo XXI.Cómo somos, cómo vivimos y convivimos en una sociedad desigual, edited by A. Salvia, and J.I. Piovani, 183–220. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, 2018.

6. Di Virgilio, María Mercedes, and Pablo Serrati. “La vivienda en crisis y la crisis de la vivienda: necesidades habitacionales y políticas públicas en el Gran Buenos Aires.” In La vivienda en propiedad y otras opciones de mercado ¿Solución habitacional estancada o activo de inversión creciente?, compiled by G. Olivera, 135–186. UNAM, 2022.

7. Di Virgilio, María Mercedes, and M. Perelman. “Las nuevas territoriales de y en la pandemia: desigualdades y conflictos en tiempos de aislamiento en Buenos Aires.” In Século XXI: Revista de Ciencias Sociales. (en prensa).

8. Esposito, M. S. Bustos, L. Cardonetti, M. J. Pueyo Alvarado et al. “El aislamiento comunitario como estrategias para la mitigación de un brote de COVID19: el caso de Villa Azul.” Global Health Promotion, 2021.

9. Girola, María Florencia, María Paula Yacovino, and Soledad Laborde. “Recentrando la centralidad: procesos de recualificación urbana y espacio público en la ciudad de Buenos Aires desde una perspectiva etnográfica.” Cuaderno urbano 10, no. 10 (2011): 25–40.

10. Gutiérrez, Ricardo. “Federalismo y políticas ambientales en la Región Metropolitana de Buenos Aires, Argentina.” EURE (Santiago) 38, no. 114 (2012): 147–171.

11. Kickert, Walter, Erik-Hans Klijn and Joop Koppenjan. Managing complex networks: Strategies for the public sector. Sage, 1997.

12. Lester, James, Joseph Stewart, David Hedge. Public Policy: An Evolutionary Approach. Minneapolis: West Publishing Co., 1996.

13. Long, Edward, Aimee L. Franklin. “The paradox of implementing the government performance and results act: top-down direction for bottom-up implementation.” Public Administration Review 64, no. 3 (2004): 309–319.

14. Motta, Eugenia, Gustavo Onto. “O tempo da crise e a moral do gasto público: o que legitima o gasto público durante a pandemia?.” Revista Rosa 1, no. 3 (2020).

15. Narotzky, Susana, Niko Besnier. “Crisis, value, and hope: rethinking the economy: an introduction to supplement 9.” Current Anthropology 55, no. S9 (2014): S4–S16. https://doi.org/10.1086/676327.

16. Peck, Jamie, Adam Tickell. “Searching for a new institutional fix: the after-Fordist crisis and the global-local disorder.” In Post-Fordism: a reader, edited by Ash Amin, 280 –315. Blackwell Publishers, 1994.

17. Peck, Jamie, Nik Theodore and Neil Brenner. “Neoliberal urbanism redux?.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 37, no. 3 (2013): 1091–1099.

18. Perelman, Mariano. “The Dollar as Evidence of Crisis: Class Identity and Processes of Uncertainty in Buenos Aires, 2011-2015.” In Workshop Ten Years of Crisis: The Ethnography of Austerity. Lisboa, 2018.

19. Perelman, Mariano. “Entre la libertad y el cuidado: Regímenes de valor en tiempos de aislamiento social.” Dilemas: Revista de Estudios de Conflitoe Controle Social. Reflexões na Pandemia, no. 7 (2020): 1–15.

20. Peters, B. Guy, Jon Pierre. “La gobernanza en niveles múltiples: ¿Un pacto fáustico?.” Foro Internacional 42, no. 3 (2002): 429–453.

21. Pírez, P. “Gobernanza metropolitana, centralización jurisdiccional y relaciones políticas.” In Ciudad, poder, gobernanza, 91–115, edited by Yáñez Warner, G., Orellana, A., Figueroa, O., and Arenas, F. Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2008.

22. Pressman, Jeffrey, Aaron Wildavsky. Implementation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

23. Sabatier, Paul A., Daniel Mazmanian. The Conditions of Effective Implementation Process—With Special Reference to Regulatory Policy. Davis: University of California–Davis and Pomona College, 1978.

24. Sabatier, Paul A. “Top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation research: a critical analysis and suggested synthesis.” Journal of public policy 6, issue 1 (1986): 21–48. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0143814X00003846.

25. Thompson, James R. “Reinvention as Reform: Assessing the National Performance Review.” Public Administration Review 60, no. 6 (2000): 508–521.

26. Visacovsky, Sergio. “Introducción. Estados Críticos: La Experiencia Social de La Calamidad.” In Estados Críticos: La Experiencia Social de La Calamidad, edited by Sergio Visacovsky, 15–63. La Plata: Ediciones Al Margen, 2011.

27. Williams, Daniel W. “Reinventing the Proverbs of Government.” Public Administration Review 60, no. 6 (2000): 522–34.

28. Wilson, Woodrow. “The Study of Administration.” Political Science Quarterly 2, no. 2 (1887): 197–222.

29. Wright, Deil S. Para entender las relaciones intergubernamentales. México, Colegio Nacional de Ciencias Políticas y Administración Pública, Universidad Autónoma de Colima y Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997.

30. Zapata Cortes, Olga Lucía. “El estudio de las relaciones entre niveles de gobierno desde las relaciones intergubernamentales y la gobernanza multinivel.” Estudios de derecho 70, no. 156 (2013): 323–344.

31. Zeolla, Nicolás Hernán, Manuel Gómez Lira, and Ivana Claudia Socoloff. “Titularización de crédito hipotecario y financierización fallida de la economía argentina 2016–2018: El caso del crédito UVA.” Revista Olafinanciera 14, no. 39 (2021): 152–171.