Asymmetries of state government social distancing policies in the face of COVID-19: political and technical-administrative aspects/ Heterogeneidades das politicas estaduais de distanciamento social diante da COVID-19: aspectos politicos e tecnico-administrativos/Heterogeneidades de las politicas estatales de distanciamiento social frente a la COVID-19: aspectos politicos y tecnico-administrativos

This article aims to analyze the leadership of Brazilian state governments on lockdown and social distancing policies to keep COVID-19 from spreading. It is assumed that the states' policies on this matter are heterogeneous, and their implementation regarding how commercial activities--and others that potentially involve a large concentration of people--is asymmetric. Therefore, the study observed the debates on policy- making processes and on autonomy and federalism to investigate the influence of political or technical- administrative factors on policies adopted at the state level in Brazil. The methodology used content analysis of 134 state norms, mapping the political-party alignment of state governors to the president, analysis of medical and hospital resources of each federation unit based on the National Register of Health Establishments. The emergency context revealed low inter-federative coordination by the federal government, competition among states, and states leadership in crisis management at the local level. The article presents evidence that state governments' leadership cannot be justified by political party alignment with the president. However, there is a correspondence between both the local health system capacity and the rigor of lockdown and social distancing policies, which indicates that, in an intense social disorder situation, technical rationality was preferable to political bargaining. Keywords: COVID-19; lockdown and social distancing policies; federative coordination; decision-making process. Este artigo tem o objetivo de analisar a lideranca dos governos estaduais brasileiros na implementacao de politicas de distanciamento social para o enfrentamento da disseminacao da COVID-19. Pressupoe-se que as politicas de distanciamento social sao heterogeneas, apesar da lideranca dos governos, ou seja, apresentam certo grau de assimetria nas restricoes do funcionamento do comercio e de atividades com potencial de aglomeracao de pessoas. Diante disso, foram combinados os debates sobre processo de producao de politicas publicas e sobre autonomia e federalismo, para investigar a influencia dos fatores politicos ou tecnico- administrativos nas politicas estaduais. Os seguintes procedimentos metodologicos foram utilizados: analise de conteudo de 134 normativas estaduais; mapeamento do alinhamento politico-partidario dos governadores estaduais ao presidente da Republica; analise dos recursos medico-hospitalares de cada unidade da federacao b