Power Dances: Political–Technocratic Dynamics in COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Policy Decision-Making in Australian States

This paper explores the power dynamics among decision-making authorities involved in the adoption of COVID-19 vaccine mandates across Australian states. During periods of crisis, policymakers are often required to make rapid decisions based on the best available scientific evidence at that time. Under such conditions, decision-making structures tend to become more centralised, with policy deliberations occurring within a relatively small group of actors. Vaccine mandates are controversial policies because they affect individual agency and autonomy for health decision-making. Understanding who uses the power (and how) to make such high-stakes decisions is therefore very important. The literature has examined dimensions of power in COVID-19 vaccine policy primarily through lenses of intergovernmental relations, focusing on dynamics between federal and state or local authorities (Capraro & Barceló, 2022; Capano & Radaelli, 2022). However, existing scholarship has paid limited attention to how power operates during the decision-making process among policy actors within the decision-making venues. This paper addresses this gap by examining institutional authority and the modes of power exercised among key policy actors, specifically political elites and senior bureaucrats, in decision-making forums. Drawing on qualitative data from the MandEval project, the study analyses more than 100 semi-structured elite interviews with health ministers, Chief Health Officers, senior bureaucrats, political advisers, and public health experts across Australian states. The data are thematically coded in NVivo and analysed using Lukes’ three dimensions of power, enabling a systematic examination of actor interactions, influence, power and authority in COVID-19 vaccine mandate policymaking. This study finds that two principal groups (“dancers”) shaped these decisions: health experts (technocrats) and elected politicians, with a notable exception in one state. These actors interacted in decision-making venues where policy options were negotiated, deliberated, and ultimately determined. Analysis of these interactions revealed distinct patterns of influence, negotiation, and contestation between actors. This paper conceptualises these interactions and their underlying dynamics as a "power dance" between political leaders and health officials, characterised by a continual push-and-pull in which actors led, followed, negotiated, and adapted to one another. The dance is characterised by the influence of policy actors through scientific expertise (technocrats), formal political authority, strategic agenda-setting, and the framing of narratives to shape policy decisions and their legitimacy. By conceptualising policy decision-making as a "power dance," this study advances understanding of how power operates within crisis policymaking through dynamic interactions between a set of policy actors. The study contributes to public policy scholarship by extending Lukes' three dimensions of power to the micro-level analysis of crisis decision-making and by providing a novel conceptual framework for examining political-technocratic power relationships. These findings offer broader insights into how authority and power are exercised, negotiated, and legitimised in high-stakes policy environments, with implications for future public health emergencies and other crisis governance contexts.