Pandemic Policymaking in Presidential Federations: Explaining Subnational Responses to Covid-19 in Brazil, Mexico, and the United States

Why do COVID-19 social distancing policies vary so widely across states in federal countries? This mixed-methods study of Brazil, Mexico, and the United States finds that state-level variation in the stringency of social distancing policies is driven not by the epidemiological, demographic, or socioeconomic factors commonly emphasized in previous research, but largely by political factors. Introducing a novel framework for explaining pandemic...