Crisis Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Nordic Way and the Swedish Exceptionalism

Abstract

This chapter examines the Nordic countries crisis management of the COVID-19 pandemic by addressing the public health measures. It first outlines the Nordic context and the policy features of the Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Second, it describes the outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of infection and death rates which were much higher in Sweden than in the other Nordic countries. Third, it gives an account of how the crisis has been managed in the five countries. The focus is on how prepared the authorities were, on the strategies and policy tools used to contain the pandemic, on leadership and politics, on crisis communication, and trust in government. Fourth, it discusses how to understand Swedish exceptionalism. While the Swedes applied a soft strategy, delegating most of the handling to expert bodies, the other Nordic countries implemented more drastic measures in which the political leadership had a more prominent role to play. To understand the variation in crisis management among the Nordic countries. We apply an institutional approach drawn from organization theory. We address structural features, administrative traditions, and leadership strategies as well as governance capacity and governance legitimacy, taking contextual features into consideration. Finally, it draws some conclusions and lessons learned.