Crisis Governance at the Local Level: Municipal Decision‐Making During COVID‐19

ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic created a global state of exception, forcing decision‐makers to address unprecedented challenges while balancing legal norms, public health and civil liberties under conditions of uncertainty. This study argues for the importance of proportionality – the principle that crisis measures must be suitable, necessary, and balanced – for maintaining democratic legitimacy during emergencies. To clarify this relationship, this article examines how five Norwegian municipalities exercised discretion under the Infection Control Act § 4‐1 and reveals significant variation in local crisis governance. The analysis applies Peters and Pierre's (2016) functionalist model and the proportionality framework and focuses on governance processes rather than hierarchical structures, and on how municipalities handle competing priorities. Through document analysis and interviews, we examine five governance functions: goal selection, resource mobilization, decision‐making, implementation, and evaluation, feedback and learning. Municipalities were chosen for representativeness. The findings indicate that local features – specifically geography, tourism, and healthcare capacity – shaped pandemic responses. The analysis highlights tensions between local autonomy and national coordination as well as between efficiency and democratic accountability. Implicitly, proportionality was crucial for legitimate decisions, civil liberties, and accountability. The results can inform debates on democratic legitimacy and the local‐national balance in health emergencies and crisis governance in general. The study advances crisis governance theory by showing how local discretion supports adaptation and accountability while deepening our insight into local‐national dynamics during emergencies.