Regardless of the type of crisis, research focus and theoretical understanding, local administrations are generally one of the first institutions on the front line to be involved in dealing with a crisis. This response can take a wide variety of forms, yet most importantly such administrative tasks require certain administrative skills in order to ensure effective crisis management. With a focus on the local administration, this study theorises that the concept of administrative capacity offers a framework to consider several key topics of current crisis and disaster research as well as the different phases of crises and disasters simultaneously. Hence, this research examines the influence of administrative capacity on public crisis management in a qualitative case study. Empirically, the four administrative capacities – analytical, regulatory, delivery, and coordination capacity – are studied on the case of the 2021 flood disaster in western Germany. By conducting expert interviews and employing qualitative content analysis on the basis of a deductive-inductive category system for analysis, this study makes use of the critical insights of experts in the field, both from administrative as well as operational perspectives. Ultimately the results provide an empirical link between stronger administrative capacity and a better crisis management outcome. Furthermore, the empirical findings validate the applicability of the concept of administrative capacity as analysis framework for public crisis management. Building on these conceptual findings, this study further proposes that the development of such an analytical framework can enhance the study of local public crisis management, being applicable across many types of crises and disasters.

In times of crisis, the reliance on expert knowledge becomes critical, as decisions must be based on accurate and timely information to address urgent public needs effectively. Expertise plays a pivotal role in navigating complex scenarios and providing the insights necessary for sound policy-making and implementation. The COVID-19 pandemic underlines this, as governments worldwide depended heavily on medical and scientific experts and expertise to guide their responses to the rapidly evolving situation. This paper explores the conceptualization of expert knowledge and the influence of administrative cultures in the USA and Germany on the use of expertise in the decision-making process. It then examines the question of how the institutional design of scientific policy advice in the USA and Germany differed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the shared federal structure of both countries, this paper follows a 'most-different-case' design due to the distinct institutional and administrative settings of each country and aims to develop a comparative framework to analyze how expertise was institutionally configured during the crisis in both countries. This study builds on the theoretical considerations in the fields of science and technology studies and scientific policy advice, which locate experts at the interface between science, politics, and administration, and characterizes the transmission of expertise as boundary work. The methodological approach of this paper is based on a comprehensive secondary analysis of existing literature and qualitative data from semi-structured expert interviews conducted in Germany between 2021-2022 (n = 16).