Political Determinants of COVID-19 Restrictions and Vaccine Rollouts : The Case of Regional Elections in Italy and Spain

The COVID-19 outbreak is one of the most significant public health crises in modern history, with considerable effects on the agendas of governments. Non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccination campaigns have been designed first and foremost to protect vulnerable groups. However, political considerations of governments matter for policy design. In this study, we follow Political Budget Cycle (PBC) theory to explore whether incumbent electoral concerns and political-related factors influence regional-level adoption of stricter containment measures and the efficiency of the vaccine rollout in the Italian and Spanish regions from June 2020 to July 2021. The results reveal that incumbents up for the next near election are 5.8% more likely to increase the stringency of containment measures than those that face a term limit. The findings also demonstrate that the seats of the incumbent and coalition parties in the parliament and the number of parties in the coalition have a negative effect on both the pace of the vaccination and the stringency of interventions. In addition, the competitiveness of the election is an important determinant of the strictness of the mitigation policies. Therefore, our results suggest that incumbents manipulate COVID-19 policy responses to attract a higher vote share. Political incentives, competition and government coalitions thus have implications for policy making in periods of health emergencies