Navigating the Pandemic: Coordination and Communication in Small Czech Municipalities

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378025%3A_____%2F26%3A00642141" target="_blank" >RIV/68378025:_____/26:00642141 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01897-7_5" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01897-7_5</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01897-7_5" target="_blank" >10.1007/978-3-032-01897-7_5</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Navigating the Pandemic: Coordination and Communication in Small Czech Municipalities

Original language description

The chapter examines how small Czech municipalities navigated the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on coordination, communication and crisis governance in a highly fragmented local government system. Drawing on national crisis legislation, epidemiological data on incidence by municipal size, and 24 semi-structured interviews with mayors of municipalities under 2,000 inhabitants, it analyses both the structural context and local actors’ perceptions and practices. The findings show that the early phase of the pandemic was marked by uncertainty, information overload and inconsistent, legalistic communication from higher tiers of government, which often reached mayors later than media reports and did not account for the specific capacities of very small municipalities. In this context, mayors increasingly relied on their own judgement, horizontal networks with neighbouring municipalities and voluntary associations, and intensive, multi-channel communication with residents. Small municipalities compensated for limited administrative staff through dense local social ties and volunteer infrastructures, especially volunteer fire brigades, and by supporting schools and vulnerable groups through ad hoc service innovations. The chapter argues that these local responses strengthened the robustness of crisis management “from below”, but also exposed a persistent national tendency to treat municipalities as a homogeneous category, ignoring size-related differences in resources and needs.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

C - Chapter in a specialist book

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50401 - Sociology

Project

<a href="/en/project/LX22NPO5101" target="_blank" >LX22NPO5101: The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2026

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Book/collection name

Fragmented Local Government Systems and Crises. Experiences from Czechia

ISBN

978-3-032-01896-0

Number of pages of the result

28

Pages from-to

115-142

Number of pages of the book

183

Publisher name

Palgrave Macmillan

Place of publication

Cham

UT code for WoS chapter

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