Hybrid Crisis Governance: A Systematic Review of Control‐Based and Collaborative Governance of the COVID‐19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT Hybrid crisis governance – combining hierarchical control with networked collaboration – has gained increasing attention in the public policy and crisis management literatures. Yet, the concept of hybridity remains crude and underdefined, limiting its analytical utility. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of how hybrid governance was applied during the COVID‐19 pandemic in Europe. Following the PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we screened 337 records and selected 20 studies for thematic synthesis. Our analysis identifies three distinct types of hybrid crisis governance: temporal, concurrent and integrative. Temporal hybridity refers to sequential shifts between control‐based and collaborative modes over time. Concurrent hybridity captures the parallel coexistence of control and collaboration with limited integration. Integrative hybridity denotes the blending of control and collaboration into fused forms such as controlled collaboration or collaborative control. This typology advances conceptual clarity in both crisis management and public governance by offering a structured analytical vocabulary for hybrid crisis governance. Assessing the strengths and limitations of each type of hybridity, we argue that effective crisis governance depends on a context‐sensitive capacity to recalibrate governance modes in response to shifting constraints and demands.