Political leadership in times of pandemic in the Spanish State and Euskadi

Abstract

This article analyzes the political leadership of the President of the Spanish State Pedro Sánchez in the management of COVID-19 during the fifteen months following the first declaration of the state of alarm and the counterweight exercised by the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) to incorporate the Autonomous Communities in such management. The systematization and analysis of the information obtained from different documentary sources, as well as the legal techniques used by the central government, allows us to identify four leadership patterns that correspond to their respective pandemic management models, shaped, in part, by the action of the PNV. The identified leadership patterns show that, although the pandemic made it possible for Sánchez to demonstrate his leadership capacity, the latter is diluted when he decides in the fourth phase to judicialize political decisions on the pandemic, which means questioning the role of leadership politicians to deal with crises.