Introduction

It was early April 2020, and I had just finished lecturing (remotely) to my students, when I received a phone call. It was from a public manager, who asked me if I would be interested in analysing the implementation processes that were being carried out to respond to the COVID-19 emergency in Italy. This meant I would have had the possibility of seeing firsthand what most other scholars could not, so I jumped at the chance without any hesitation. Indeed, most of the research on the COVID-19 crisis has been realised ‘from the balcony’ perspective, because nobody was allowed to follow the response processes behind the scenes (Boin et al. 2021, p. V). Therefore, this book presents the findings of research conducted, it is possible to say, directly from the control room perspective.