The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a globally spread—but differently timed—implementation of school closures and other disruptive containment measures as governments worldwide intervened to curb transmission of disease. This study argues that the timing of such disruptive interventions reflects how governments balance the principles of precaution and proportionality in their pandemic decision-making. A theory is proposed of how their trade-off is impacted by two interacting institutional factors: electoral democratic institutions, which incentivise political leaders to increasingly favour precaution, and high state administrative capacity, which instead makes a proportional strategy involving later containment measures more administratively and politically feasible. Global patterns consistent with this theory are documented among 170 countries in early 2020, using Cox models of school closures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions. Corroborating the theorised mechanisms, additional results indicate that electoral competition prompts democratic leaders’ faster response, and that this mechanism is weaker where professional state agencies have more influence over policymaking.

How is government affected by including populists in a governing coalition? We investigate if populist political parties behave ‘normally’ when they attain power, or if they govern differently from mainstream political parties. Empirically, we use survey data from 282 ministerial advisers from three cabinets in Norway. Our conclusion is that populists govern normally on some governance dimensions and exceptionally on others. Populists in office had ample professional experience, adhered to collegial decision making and thought the bureaucracy delivered quality and was politically responsive – on a par with the non-populists. However, populists differed from non-populist politicians in their contact patterns and their communicative concerns. That populists in this context belong to a party with a long history of parliamentary representation (Norway's Progress Party) suggests elements of exceptionalism are things one should expect to find in practically all populist parties that attain power.