Pandemic Policy and Mutual Aid: An Application of Elinor Ostrom’s Polycentricity to Princeton’s Pandemic Response

Abstract

This investigation takes as its premise that the failed COVID-19 pandemic response headed by government officials and policymakers and the subsequent flourishing of mutual aid networks across the United States represents a unique situation from which those policymakers could learn about the pitfalls of their approach to designing and implementing policy. This paper introduces the concept of mutual aid to an audience of policymakers and researchers who may not have encountered the term previously. It provides several different but complementary conceptual frameworks for understanding the relationship between government and mutual aid, both in the specific context of the pandemic response failure and in general. The most important of these frameworks presented in the paper is Elinor Ostrom’s conception of polycentricity. It also substantiates the controversial claims inherent in its premise, that the pandemic response was a failure. The investigation draws its conclusions from interviews conducted with three government officials and policymakers and three mutual aid participants who were active in the town of Princeton during the pandemic and argues that, in the municipality of Princeton, there tends to be, in practice, a tense relationship between government and mutual aid, often characterized by conflict more than cooperation. It also provides local government officials and policymakers with recommendations about how to reallocate budgets towards more efficient spending and what programs they could fund based on an application of Ostrom’s polycentricity as a lens for studying local pandemic policy response failures in the town of Princeton.