What Has China Learned from Pandemics? The Evolution and Innovation of China’s Pandemic Response and Emergency Management Systems

Abstract Public sectors typically learn from crises, providing them the opportunity to improve the performance of crisis management. Through thematic analysis, this study maps out the evolution process of China’s pandemic response and emergency management systems and summarizes the characteristics of China’s crisis learning process, crisis learning subject, and crisis learning content. The findings indicate that China’s pandemic response and emergency management systems have the characteristics of crisis learning with gradual adjustments and continuous innovation. Specifically, under the impetus of China’s political factors, its pandemic response and emergency management systems have been able to learn from crises and have a complete crisis learning process. This crisis learning process includes adaptive learning, as well as single, double, and triple-loop learning. There is also a clear selection preference at various government levels, corresponding crisis learning processes and stages, and the path dependence of crisis learning content. Moreover, political accountability, attention, and pressure are the key factors opening the window of crisis learning, but the decision-making authority is the decisive factor of crisis learning in China’s centralized context. This study provides a theoretical framework for understanding the evolution and changes in the government’s crisis learning model and puts forward policy implications.