Sweden Amid The Pandemic, The Scandinavian Outlier? An analysis of the enacted policies during the first stage of the covid-19 outbreak.

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Sweden Amid The Pandemic, The Scandinavian Outlier?

An analysis of the enacted policies during the first stage of the covid-19 outbreak.

Jaione Santurtun Autumn 2021

Master Thesis in Peace and Conflict Studies Department of Political Science

University of Oslo

Word Count: 23,683

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Sweden Amid The Pandemic, The Scandinavian Outlier? An analysis of the enacted policies during the first stage of the covid-19 outbreak

http://www.duo.uio.no/

Word Count: 23,683

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Abstract

Why did Sweden decide to not impose restrictive measures during the first wave of COVID- 19? The lack of binding measures in the Scandinavian country were an exception within its own region during the first wave of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. In order to understand the reasons behind this response to the health crisis, I have utilized the multilevel theoretical framework generated by Graham Allison for his work “The Essence of Decission”, firstly compiling the measures enacted by the different Scandinavian governments during the pandemic in order to expose Sweden as an outlier and on the aftermath analyzing the administrative transformation that Sweden has been undergoing since the seventies. The results of this research suggest that the response of Sweden was predictable and that the aforementioned transformation has provoking a neoliberal shift within the Scandinavian country, that has affected its policies and institutions, decentralizing the state and giving the competences to newly created agencies that have gained too much power and autonomy.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Axel West Pedersen, for his indispensable guidance and feedback; your thorough comments on the final drafts, and your support throughout this whole process were a lighthouse in the middle of the storm. Thanks also to Staffan Kumlin for connecting me with Axel for this project.

To Therese Sefton, thank you for all your efforts in reading, re-reading and for taking your time for some advice over a coffee. Without your guidance and advice, this project would not have been the same.

Thanks to my family and friends in Spain, and an especial thanks to my Oslo friends who have been, after all, my bonus family in the darkest of times.

And last, but not least, heartfelt thanks to all the healthcare workers - especially to my mother and my friends back home! - who bravely fought against the virus, and who are the true inspiration behind this work.

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3. Chapter III: Scandinavia Amid The Pandemic...24-49 3.1. Background: the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe...26-27 3.2. Relevant background characteristics of Denmark, Norway and Sweden...27-33 3.3. Political responses to the first wave of the pandemic: Scandinavia...33-47 3.3.1. The Danish response...34-38 3.3.2. The Norwegian response...38-43 3.3.3. The Swedish response...44-47 3.4. Final remarks...48-49

4. Chapter IV: Analysis...49-77 4.1. Domestic Actors and Legal Framework during the pandemic: Sweden...50-53 4.2. Hypotheses...53-55 4.3. Analysis...55-77 4.3.1. Model I or Sweden as a Rational Actor...56-65 4.3.2. Model II or the crumbling of Sweden´s Welfare State...66-73 4.3.3. Model III or the risks of personalisms...73-77

Conclusions...78-80 5.1. Limitations and recommendations for further research...79-80 Bibliography...80-103

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List of Tables

Table 1...28-29 Table 2...30-32 Table 3...35-36 Table 4...39-41 Table 5...44-45

List of Figures

Figure 1...34

Figure 2...38

Figure 3...43

Figure 4...47

Figure 5...63

Figure 6...64

Figure 7...65

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Introduction

As the coronavirus pandemic began to rampage across the European continent during the early spring of 2020, the western world as we know suffered one of its greatest transformations in modern history, as the very foundations of its society were shaken. With hindsight, democratic governments faced one of their greatest challenges to date. Applying restrictive policies in order to protect the lives of the risk groups in their populations, while trying at the same time to respect the limits of individual freedom. Often met with skepticism, many governments were accused of overstepping their limits and establishing highly authoritarian policies that restricted the individual freedom of their citizens and bordered on authoritarianism. On other occasions, many governments were justly accused of the opposite: prioritizing, whether for economic or ideological reasons, individual freedom over public health. Ultimately, some countries were highly praised for their management of the crisis, while others were severely criticized.

All in all, the speed with which Western governments had to apply measures left us facing an unparalleled scenario for conducting comparative political analysis; the disagreements between countries belonging to the same geographical areas was surprising and highly debated.

One of the most commented and supported efforts was that of the Scandinavian countries;

the speed with which these countries closed their borders and closed non-essential businesses and schools has been considered one of the key pieces of the low incidence of the pandemic in the area. Therefore, when Sweden moved away from the line of action that the other Nordic countries had marked to focus on a policy that resonated to that of liberal countries such as the United Kingdom, the simple yet incisive question crossed the minds of many: why? What in the world would have led the Scandinavian country almost par excellence, always a benchmark in humanist policies, to protect its economy with that exacerbated ferocity?

This research argues that Sweden's reaction to the coronavirus was not only expected, but the result of a political, economic and social process that has been transforming the country since the eighties, and that has modified the foundations of the Swedish state itself.

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Using the theoretical frameworks developed by Graham Allison during his analysis book:

“The Essence of Decision”, this paper will first attempt to create a comparative framework with the other Scandinavian units to highlight Sweden's deviance during the first wave of the coronavirus crisis, that comprises the first eight months of the year 2020. The aim of this comparison, further than proving a deviant behavior, has the objective of disclosing the reason behind the behavior itself, through the analysis of the transformative process that both the Swedish administration and the Swedish government have been undergoing since the eighties, in order to answer the question this research aims to disclose: why did Sweden decide to not impose restrictive measures during the first wave of COVID-19?

Chapter I: Literature Review

This section of the thesis will be concerned with providing the tools for later analyzing the response mechanisms behind Swedish government´s COVID-19 early policies; likewise, this framework will help to identify and analyze plausible explanations for the variety national of responses within the Scandinavian region. To achieve this, we will be closely analyzing the literature concerned with crisis management and decision making process within liberal democracies. In this chapter we will present the theoretical framework that will be utilized within this work, followed by a critical analysis involving newly developed theories in the discussed literature bodies. At the end, a conclusion gathering the encountered strands will be drawn.

1.1. Theoretical framework

The way governments handle crises has always been under scrutiny, causing great interest within political science literature, as the majority of scholars seem to struggle when trying to examine and comprehend such a complex and volatile phenomena, especially since crises are often, if not always, characterized by instability. In addition, the characteristics that all crises seem to share threat, urgency, uncertainty and collective stress, make it extremely difficult to deliver guidance and governorship. This is especially true for liberal democracies, since their leadership and authority is constrained to the set of rules that compound the grounds for the democratic state (Boin et al. 2016).

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All in all, probably one the most comprehensive attempts of dissecting and analyzing all the mechanisms that play a part in the decision making process of a national government when facing a crisis was made by Graham Allison in 1971, when he decided to expose the motivations and reasoning behind the actors that took part in the series of events later coined as the <<Cuban´s missile crisis>>. By introducing his three models — the rational actor, organizational process, and governmental politics models, respectively named model I, II, and III — Allison showed how to develop multilevel explanations of events that political researchers had only been able to analyze on a superficial level before. In so doing, Allison has been said to have helped to “place the study of bureaucracy's influence on foreign policy on a more scientific foundation” (Bendor and H. Hammond;1992:302). His work has been praised beyond that for its many applications outside the field, since as the same Allison pointed out “our central argument can be applied broadly in arenas beyond foreign affairs” (Allison; 1999:7).

Although there is no way of denying that his three-model-theory plays an outstanding role on the literature dedicated to the analysis of bureaucracy's role in foreign policy, giving insight into the decision-making process a government goes through when facing a ticking time crisis, Allison´s work has also faced important criticism.

This criticism was at least partly motivated by the fact that Models I, II and III were respectively correlated to three main bodies of literature within political science: rational choice theory, organization theory and bureaucratic politics. Accordingly, Allison was heavily criticized for allegedly misinterpreting parts of each of these three fields (Allyn, Blight, and Welch;1989). These accusations were not invalid; as a matter of fact, the very own Allison proposed to unify Model´s II and III in an attempt to correct what he considered to be his multilevel analysis greatest weakness.

Contemporary to Allison, author Lynn (1982) was also praised in the organizational decision- making analytic field after drawing a comparison in between “the modern organization theory model with the so-called garbage can model” within the context of analyzing processes leading to the adoption of new steelmaking technology. After applying both these models to a selection of relevant companies the author then selects “the most optimal model to explain the decision-making process of each company” (Kuwashima; 2014:217).

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Although the attempt of Lynn is interesting and edge cutting on its own way, considered by some as a most sophisticated version of Allison´s models, we do consider that the amplitude of scopes that Allison´s framework offers it´s one of the greatest virtues of the model, as it allows to analyze the situation from different angles, and therefore, prefer to employ the framework developed by Allison, although with certain adjustments. As a matter of fact, Allison has not been the only one attempting to correct his own work; for instance, author Barbara Kellerman (1983) attempted to elevate Allison´s analysis by adding up three more models to the already formulated ones.

However, we have decided that the most convenient approach is to follow the path started by researchers Jonathan Bendor and Thomas H. Hammond (1992); namely, enriching the three previously formulated models by including newly developed theories and changes within the aforementioned bodies of literature. We do consider that adding up the new findings of each of the fields, as well as clearer delimitation of the analysis bodies, will create a framework that will impact this work more positively than uniting models or adding up new ones without restraining the previously formulated ones.

Thus, and for the sake of reinterpreting Allison´s models from a current perspective - appropriate for our subsequent analysis-, throughout this chapter we will first examine the key characteristics of each of his models and then review the related literature. For such aim, we will be using both crisis management literature and the literature that embodies each of these models, in order to first determine which has been the contribution that Allison´s model has had to each of these literature bodies, and so as to discuss the application of Allison´s models to the analysis of crises.

1.2. Model I: The Rational Actor

As previously mentioned, Allison´s Model I, also known as the Rational Model, aims to unfold the goals and estimations of the governments that are involved on the crisis scenario that is being analyzed (Allison & Philip;1999:13). As before mentioned, Model I aligns with the basic premises of rational choice theory, which is a standardized frame of analysis when it comes to examining decision-making – also under extreme, risky conditions (Tversky and Kahneman;1986:251–254).

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On a general note, before presenting Model I, it is important to mention that the application of the rational theory to foreign policy analysis has, in more ways than one, paved the way for researchers that seek to unravel the roots of foreign policy through a staggered process of multilevel analysis (Alden;2017:2-3).

That said, a rational actor model in international relations is commonly composed by a decision-theoretic factor and a game-theoretic one. Both of these theoretical aspects are closely related. The decision theory is concerned with the analysis of the decision-making process, whereas the game theory often covers the strategic interactions among the actors involved on the decision-making process (Bendor and Hammond; 1992:304).

The two decision-theoretic premises that Model I uses are commonly found in the majority of international relation theories; that is to say, the state is treated as a single actor that has both a set of goals and a capacity to pursue the aforementioned in a rational manner. Taking into consideration that the single unit actor approach is often appropriate for analytical purposes, and that treating national governments as if they were centrally coordinated purposive individuals provides a useful shorthand for understanding policy choices and actions. The criticism that the decision-theoretic aspect of Model I often receives is centered around the definition of rationality that the Allison himself provides. The premise often followed in international relations regarding rational decision making can be summarized in four key aspects: “define one's goals, list all options for achieving these goals, evaluate each option in terms of the extent to which it achieves the goals, and choose the option that best achieves the goals” (Bendor and Hammond; 1992:304). Following that commonly used premise, Allison affirms that Model I could be used to understand the reasoning behind three major choices in the Cuban missile crisis: why the Soviet Union placed the missiles in Cuba in the first place, why the United States responded with a naval quarantine, and why the Soviet Union withdrew its missiles. Although the intention of Allison when formulating these premises was - most likely - to show how propositions that may seem simple at first glance then require of the use of multiple bodies of analysis inside the discipline in order to be examined, this formulation has been considered as the model´s major fault by many experts, as it has been accused of omitting several important properties of rational actors and important problems they face (Bendor and H. Hammond; 1992:304).

To say so, critics of Allison’s version of the rational model claim that this body makes unrealistic and over-simplified assumptions, stating that:

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“Allison's rational actor model is as simple a version of rational choice as one could imagine (...) the model's major fault (...) it is too simple, for it omits several significant properties of rational actors and important problems they face. The model can be enriched in several different ways” (Bendor and H. Hammond; 1992:305).

We do therefore argue that Model I shares the most common flaws of the rational model of decision-making; namely: the fact that actors rarely have the access to full or perfect information, the fact that determining the <<rational choice>> is often limited by the ability of the actor to analyze the situation and to think about every existing possible choice; in other words, the more complex a decision, the greater the limits are to making completely rational choices (Ball;1974). In addition, experts like Robert Jervis (1976) have pointed out that the analysis of the crisis situation could be affected by the actor´s own perception and misperception; that is to say, the way the actors perceive the reality “subjective understandings of reality” (287) have an impact upon foreign policy decision making.

In addition, rather than always seeking to optimize benefits while minimizing costs, actors are often willing to compromise and choose an acceptable option rather than the optimal one. This is especially true when it is difficult to precisely measure and assess factors among the selection criteria (Arts and Verschuren;1999).

Academically, the main criticism towards the realist approach comes traditionally from the field of behavioral theories, that have tried to propose approaches that involve the cognitive aspects of decision making. Proposed by Herbert A. Simon as a more holistic way of understanding decision-making, the <<bounded rationality theory>> is a classic example of this attempt. This theory argues that an actor´s rationality is limited by the information they possess at the time, the cognitive limitations of their own thinking process, and the amount of time they have to make a decision. On the same line of investigation, authors Janis and Mann were the first to examinate emotional responses – such as stress – as relevant mechanisms affecting foreign policy decision making, while later authors examined in greater detail through the framework of motivational approaches in political psychology (Janis &

Mann, 1977; Stein & Welch, 1997). In addition, Alexander George later introduced methodologies, aimed at discerning the linkage between leaders’ belief systems and their

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influence on foreign policy (George, 1969; Schafer & Walker, 2006; He & Feng, 2013). All these theories provide a relevant framework that allows to enrichen the realist approach.

Thus, it is a real possibility to consider that Model I could be enrichen by the use or addition of alternative theories like the prospect theory, in which Tversky and Kahneman propose a two- phase approach to encapsulate the dynamics of the decision-making process (Alden;2017).

Therefore, during the so-called “framing and editing” phase, a reference point against which perceptions of loss and gain are measured is established. The second phase establishes a normative assessment and weighting of feasible decisions based on the reference point.

Accordingly, prospect theory argues that actors fear losses more than they value gains, so they weigh the probabilities of negative outcomes more heavily than their actual potential cost (Tversjky and Kahneman; 1986). Similarly, on recent years, Alex Mintz´s work, the

<<poliheuristic theory>> was responsible of acknowledging the critique posed by behaviorists and reconciling it with a rational choice approach to decision making (Mintz, 2004). In order to do so, this author breaks foreign policy decision making into two separate phases. The first stage demands the analysis of <<non-compensatory>> and cognitive aspects valued by the leadership, meaning the impact that a particular political decision could have on the decision-maker political survival (Mintz & Geva; 1997:82-87). The second phase is linked with conventional rational choice theories, “involving the weighing of policy options that are deemed to be <<compensatory>> and within the same dimension in conformity to maximizing utility”

(Alden; 2017:18). In order to analyze decision making processes, Mintz also suggested the utilization of an Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method within the poliheuristic theory, that we will subsequently also utilize during Model I. The ADA framework includes six different phases; namely : recognize the number of options available to the decision maker - that can range from inaction to the use of force; identify the different choice criteria that could assess the situation, for example an economic dimension or a political one; asses the importance level of these dimensions; identify the implications that these choices may have;

rate the implications and finally identify the decision rules used by leaders (Mintz;2005:94- 98).

1.3. Model II: Organizational Process

Often highlighted as the most insightful model among the three, Allison´s model II revolves around organizational behavior theory. Unlike model I - whose premise is based on

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anthropomorphizing the analyzed actors as if they were an individual person - model II argues that a government is not an “<<individual governmental behavior>> but rather composed by

<<outputs of large organizations functioning according to standard operational procedures>>” (Allison, G;1999: 143). That is to say, subjects in model II explanations are organizations, and their behavior is explained in terms of organizational purposes and practices common to the members of the organization, not those peculiar to one or another individual.

Thus, the decisions that an organization will take, as well as their own behavior is already determined by routines that were established prior to the crisis that is being handled, not allowing many deviations; although by no means does Allison argue that organizations do not change, he does confirm that the change within organizations is often gradual, and that tendencies are normally maintained over time; the exception to this are crises of great magnitude which can provoke dramatical change in organizations in little time (ídem:144- 151).

Borrowing the organization concept developed by Simon and March (1993), Allison describes organizations as a group of individuals assembled in regular ways that create capabilities in order to perform tasks that would otherwise be impossible to be carried out, constraining behavior on the process of performing these tasks, as they already have a preestablished set of rules that they follow; this set of rules, often deemed organizational culture, often shapes the behavior of the individuals that conform the aforementioned organization which provokes that ultimately, an organization is more relatable to a bundle of technologies than to a group of human beings (ídem:150-153).

At the core of Model II lies the idea introduced first by Herbert Simon and James March (1993) - Carnegie school of organization -, who argued that although mindless and inefficient at times, in certain circumstances organization´s protocols can actually save lives, since these protocols prevailed over the often flawed cognitive capacities of the members that compose the organization; indeed, the idea that the rationality of the individuals inside the organizations is limited prevails throughout Model II (Boin et al. 2016).

Meanwhile, Allison argues for the existence of standard operating procedures (SOP for short) inside organizations; SOP are defined as a simple set of rules that an organization follows in order to gain information, define possible option and implement their programs. The

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functioning of the SOPs within organizations can be described by a linear equation, coding behavior at one time as t, being this marginally different from behavior at t – 1. Accordingly, behavior at t + 1 will be slightly different from behavior at the present time (Allison, G;1999:149). The distinctive characteristic of organizational activity lies on its prearranged nature: the degree to which conduct in any particular case in an endorsement of prearranged procedures; the fact that this fixed norm can limit the performance capability of leadership is often overlooked by these same leaders.

On one hand, Allison was truly visionary on the way he operationalized how organizational culture affects public leadership. As a matter of fact, Allison claims that “the decisions of government leaders trigger organizational routines (...) most of the behavior is determined by previously established procedures” (ídem:164) ; indeed, recent studies on organizational culture by Boin have backed up those claims, arguing that political leaders depend on organizations to execute their decisions (Boin et al. 2016:62). During critical times, as the main characteristics of crises are commonly those of threat, urgency, uncertainty and collective stress, providing leadership is often impossible, making it more likely for the so-called leaders to rely on a prefabricated set of rules than on mere leadership (Boin et al. 2016:62-65), thus it can be extracted that organizations often affect public leadership more than public leadership affects organizations. On another note, the importance that Allison places on organizational culture may undermine hierarchy and the influence that power higher level officials hold within certain organizations and therefore it can lead to skew the analyst’s understanding of organizations and their behavior.

In addition, Allison claims that SOPs limit and constrain behavior, generating a simple and predictable reaction from the limited rational individuals that compose the organization.

Conversely, Simon and March (1993) do affirm throughout their work that "complex processes can be aggregated from simple elements", which means that the use of a preestablished set of decision rules by irrational individuals does not necessarily equate a simple and predictable behavior of an organization.

A very simple way of exemplifying an unexpected outcome derived from a simple set of rules can be found in one of the most common strategies in game theory: the Tit-for-Tat strategy – which in the following will be referred to as TFT (Bendor and Hammond; 1992). An agent that relies on this strategy could cooperate once and never again, then subsequently replicate

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an opponent's previous action. If facing a collaborative agent, TFT cooperates forever.

Against a strategic opponent, TFT will cooperate as long as its partner does, retaliating against a defection but then returning to cooperation if the partner changes behavior.

Moreover, if the environment is disturbing - unobserved random disturbances affect the players' pay- offs -, TFT produces variable behavior even when playing an equally simple strategy (Bendor and Hammond; 1992:309-313).

Moreover, Allison argues that simple rules “can be activated by random shocks in an organization's environment” (Allison, G;1999:147); taking into account that most organizations tend to fail when it comes to crisis recognition, due mainly to the fact that the resources they spend on detection are scarce, the way the organizations would react towards a threat would be in most cases unpredictable, “some organizational cultures value improvisation, while others actively discourage it” (Boin et al.;2016:62). That is to say, due to the fact that simple rules can be activated by unexpected events its behavior can be, in a certain sense, surprising, as well as complex. For example, a crisis protocol could be highly routinized and preprogrammed, but the organization's behavior would not be unconditionally predictable, since they could resort to either improvisation or rely on SOP, depending on the organizational culture they belong to.

For these organizations, it need not be true that the best predictor of the organization's behavior at time t is its behavior at t – 1 (ídem: 60-65).

1.4. Model III : Governmental politics

Model III´s central argument could be easily sum up by quoting Mile´s Law, “where you stand depends upon where you sit”. To say so, this law affirms that there is a direct correlation between the position an individual takes on a particular issue and the title or position that individual holds in the organization, and that´s the main argument that lies at the core of Model III. Namely:

"The name of the game is politics: bargaining along regularized circuits among players positioned hierarchically within the government. Government behavior can thus be understood according to a third conceptual model, not as organizational outputs but as results of these bargaining games"

(Allison, G;1999).

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In this model, those in charge of various state responsibilities make predictable arguments based on their present position. Policy <<outcomes>> are the result of negotiations among these leaders. This model dispenses fully with the "unitary" government idea. “The decisions and actions of governments are essentially intra-national political outcomes: outcomes in the sense that what happens is not chosen as a solution to a problem but rather results from compromise, coalition, competition, and confusion among government officials who see different faces of an issue; political in the sense that the activity from which the outcomes emerge is best characterized as bargaining” (ídem:689).

However, to build a clear and coherent model around this claim proved to be a difficult challenge, even acknowledged by Allison himself: “the paradigm. . . can be no more than a tentative formalization” (ídem:690) therefore, it can be stated that model III is the least precisely formulated model and henceforth, the most criticized. This is mainly due to the fact that the literature that Allison had to rely on at the time was not the most appropriate one, since the literature concerning bureaucratic politics tend to be more discursive than theoretical and therefore more difficult to create a precise analytical framework with.

In addition, Model III assumes that the actors involved have conflicting goals, yet certain authors like Krasner (1972) have pointed out that considerable similarity in policymakers' views should be expected, since normally the president chooses the cabinet, which also would explain another criticism in model III: although mentioned briefly, the hierarchical impact within certain bureaucratical models is not addressed properly throughout the model.

The assumption of the different bureaucratic agents having – hypothetically – conflicting goals has been tackled but what is more, several authors inside the discipline have insisted on the fact that, even if actors´ goals are identical, they may disagree about how to achieve those ends, and this internal conflict can cause disagreement among the bureaucratic unit (Ball;1974:71-92). Although Allison does mention the importance of differing beliefs among the actors, he does not adequately distinguish between conflicts caused by differing beliefs and conflicts caused by differing goals. The natural question to raise is therefore, what kind of policymaking would be produced among actors with different beliefs, or which would be the person with the ultimate decision-making power (Krasner;1972).

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Hypothetically, decisions could be taken single-handedly by powerful enough actor – like e.g.

a president; however, since we are examining liberal democracies in our analysis we may have to keep in mind during our analysis that bargaining games within liberal democracies often face a “context of a delicate political, legal and moral order that forces them to read off considerations of effectiveness and efficiency against other embedded values” (Boin et al.;2016:64).

1.5. Conclusion

During this chapter we have tried to unify and contrast both the existing praise and criticism towards Graham Allison´s theory, <<Essence of Decision>>. Although truly innovative, there is no way of denying that when creating his multilevel analytical approach, Allison misinterpreted or simplified certain parts of the literature bodies to which each model belonged, as it has been recognized by the own author.

Although Allison later tried to unite model II and III in order to correct the mistakes, he thought he had produced during the formulation of model´s II and III, we have based our approach to reframing this structure on Cornford’s (1972) leading argument on the virtue of

“separating Models II and III and in clarifying their internal logic prior to synthesizing” (Allyn, Blight, and Welch; 1989:132).

In order to do so, we have introduced certain parts of behavioral theorists in Model I. We do not consider that this takes out from Model II, on the contrary, treating the rational actor as boundedly rational has been an increased trend in rationalism, plus with Model II focusing on the role of the different agencies and Model I in the role of the unitary state, we do consider that including behavioral theories on Model I just enriches the model, as it allows for a current take on rationalist theories. For Model II, probably the most developed among Allison's models, we have simply decided to underline that it is very important to take into account the theories developed by Simon and March about the behavior of institutions, to avoid oversimplification during our analysis. For Model III, we have tried to clarify its structure and highlight its uniqueness and the differences that it has with Model II, since one of the biggest complications that this analysis model presents is its relative similarity to model II, which can lead to misinterpretations.

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All in all, as we have recompiled, the downside of Allison´s multilevel model it´s, at the same time, one of its greatest virtues: its attention to historical detail. Historical accuracy was, at the time, traded on behalf of internal logic amongst the models, namely, whether the shift from a unitary actor towards multiple actors require them to have the same or conflicting roles.

CHAPTER II: Methods

This section of the thesis will be focused on covering the methodological approaches applied in this project. In order to do so, the following sections will address the type of research that will be developed throughout the project as well as the data collection and data analysis methods that have been employed. Followingly, the limitations that a work of these characteristics possesses will be tackled.

2.1. Methodology

As previously stated, the final aim of this work is trying to explain the Swedish approach to tackling the first wave of the corona epidemic. In order to do so, we use Graham Allison´s three model frameworks as guide to analysis of the explicit and implicit political decisions that were taken at the time by the Swedish authorities. In addition, the comparative framework of Scandinavia will allow to determine the particularities of the Swedish policies when tackling this health crisis. Consequently, the discursive nature of this project would place it on the qualitative research field (Silverman;2016:7-8).

On another note, John Gerring (2004) argues that there are some advantages adhered to the usage of case study methods; to say so, case studies are more useful for forming descriptive inferences, for exploring causal mechanisms and for complex causal mechanisms to be identified and assessed (345-347). In addition, within the comparative political field, the case study method allows the study of smaller social and political units that in this particular context are key in order to determine the level of involvement and influence of the different Swedish domestic actors in the country´s policymaking on the context of the first wave of covid-19. Likewise, it is crucial to mention that this study falls into the sub-category of Most Similar Systems Design model; when applying this structure, “we choose as objects of

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research systems that are as similar as possible, except with regard to the phenomenon, the effects of which we are interested in assessing” (Anckar;2008:389); on the particular case of the study, we have decided to analyze Scandinavia, a geographical area that is particularly famous for the homogeneity among the countries that conform the region, in order to address why Sweden followed a path marked by exceptionalism during the first stage of the coronavirus pandemic.

Thus, in order to gain a greater understanding of the causal dynamics that produced the outcome we are examining – Sweden having very different policies from its Scandinavian neighbors – process-tracing is selected, being conveniently the most appropriate research method to test the internal validity of the design (Collier;2011:823). Process tracing is defined by Collier (2011) as “an analytic tool for drawing descriptive and causal inferences from diagnostic pieces of evidence— often understood as part of a temporal sequence of events or phenomena” (824). Gerring (2007) makes the additional claim that the process-tracing method is extremely useful in order to “identify intermediate factors lying between some structural cause and its purposed effect” (45); (Wolthuys; 2016:6).

In order to elaborate the PT methodology, Derek Beach and Rasmus Brun Pedersen (2013) identify three sub-types: “theory-testing process-tracing, explaining outcome process- tracing, and theory-building process tracing” (11). Second category, explaining outcome process tracing is described as “studies that attempt to craft a minimally sufficient explanation of a historical outcome in a specific case” (ídem:3). We believe that Allison´s study of the Cuban missile Crisis should be classified under this category and so would the study that we are currently developing.

2.2. Data

The data for the elaboration of this study is collected from different sources depending on the section of the study that we are tackling. First and foremost, for the elaboration of the historical context and case study specification that this study required, secondary data, in the form of books and press releases, as well as official documents and statements carried out by the different organizations responsible for the communication during the pandemic were employed. Likewise, we have gathered relevant statistical and demographic data in order to compare and contrast the different units of analysis.

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For the elaboration of the analysis however, where the major goal is to identify the actors and secondary actors that influenced the policy making directly and indirectly, we have relied on governmental documents and official statements while adding relevant supporting documents belonging to influential domestic actors.

Another source of information has been gathered through the recollection of relevant speeches carried out by governmental actors. While an excessive reliance on official documents could make bias the study, we want to bring to the reader’s attention that Silverman (2016) already tackled that the importance of official sources must not be dismissed, especially in countries with high levels of trust and transparency as the Nordic democracies, due mainly to the fact that “the documents and the talk about them reveal prevailing norms, logics, discourses and rhetoric” (167). Thus, apart from extremely relevant information about the norms that were introduced at the time, these documents could also disclose a much-needed societal context for the development of the analysis.

2.3. Limitations

Finally, when addressing the limitations that a study of these characteristics encompasses, temporal boundaries must be assumed. As Gerring (2007) argues, this is especially relevant when the examined case consist of “discrete events—crises, revolutions, legislative acts, and so forth—within a single unit” (49).

Likewise, as Allison addresses throughout his book, static selection is also a very much possible bias when analyzing foreign policy crises, as the uncertainty that characterizes them could cause some policy decisions to disappear and reappear at a later date. Since this study is analyzing policy making within an ongoing global health crisis, some limitations on the temporal aspect must be expected, as in order to develop the analysis, it was necessary to frame the reviewed events at a certain time frame, being the choice on this case to tackle the policy making choices that were made throughout the later categorized as <<the first wave>> of the pandemic.

In addition, and as far as the carried out research is concerned, Allison´s framework has not been applied to a health emergency before; however, and since Allison himself claimed that

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“the rational actor, organizational behavior and governmental politics models can be applied beyond foreign policy to the domestic policy of national governments; state and local governments; nongovernmental organizations like the UN and the Red Cross, schools, universities and hospitals” (Allison and Philip;1999), we have decided that it could be a suitable framework to analyze the ongoing health crisis.

In addition, Allison´s model is characterized as being discursive, that is to say, it may be a good framework for hypothesis generating, but the testing of those hypotheses may is difficult, if not impossible within this framework.

Last but not least, a certain amount of subjectivity, as well as the limited generalizability that characterizes case studies is somehow to be expected, especially since this study applies the Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) approach, in which “we choose as objects of research systems that are as similar as possible, except with regard to the phenomenon, the effects of which we are interested in assessing” (Anckar; 2008:389).

Chapter III: Scandinavia Amid The Pandemic

As the SARS-CoV-2 virus spread around the world in early 2020, leading to the start of the – still – ongoing coronavirus pandemic, governments around the world were swift to implement various sets of policy measures in an attempt to protect the lives and health of their citizens while minimizing economic damage (IMF;2021). While the management of this crisis in the European territory was generally criticized for its lack of cooperation across state borders, which translated into a vastly different impact of the pandemic between countries, the Nordic countries were praised by the epidemiologists and medical experts for its coordinated, rapid, joint reaction, the only and striking exception being the Swedish case; in other words: “strong contrasts between seemingly similar countries have been and continue to be demonstrated through the different handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its consequences” (PRIO;

2020).

While the rest of Scandinavia imposed strict measures, including lockdowns, Sweden decided for much lighter restrictions, which were praised by some for its trust-based approach and its sustainability on the long run (The Irish Times;2020), while criticized by others for being

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too lax, with the Swedish authorities accused of risking the population´s lives at the expense of saving the country´s economy (Ghitis;2020).

Since the Covid-19 continues to impact and forcibly transform global societies, explaining and understanding how different governments addressed the challenges of this pandemic and the reasons behind their choices may come as valuable for policymakers who continue to manage the multiple consequences of this disease using an always changing evidence base.

While the coronavirus pandemic triggered a large body of epidemiological and mathematical research, the available information regarding the policy making during the pandemic is much more limited, being composed by papers that mostly tackle the conundrum of public involvements or the psychological consequences of social distancing. A comparison of the different approaches towards handling the pandemic, as well as the reasons behind these choices, could be critical to improve our understanding of why different policies have been used to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, helping the current policymakers to understand and adjust themselves to the ongoing medical emergency (Desson et al. 2020).

Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to present the policies applied by Scandinavian countries amid the first wave of the Sars-CoV-2 outbreak in Europe, to back up our first claim that pointed out the Swedish government´s political response to the pandemic as an outlier amid the analyzed region.

In order to develop this section, it is important to first define and delimit what we are referring to as <<<Scandinavia>>; after all, the delimitation and the definition of this particular region has been historically subjected to different interpretations; however, and for delimitation purposes, we have decided to select the undisputed members of this region and therefore, the subjects of our study will consist of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. As we have briefly mentioned beforehand, some experts argue about the inclusion of Iceland or Finland among Scandinavia, and despite the fact that the fellow two can be considered Nordic countries with Scandinavian roots, only the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish can be purely referred as part of the Scandinavian peninsula. Indeed, “Scandinavia, historically Scandia, part of northern Europe, generally held to consist of the two countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Norway and Sweden, with the addition of Denmark” (Encyclopædia Britannica; 2018).

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Characterized by high trust in government, high ethnic homogeneity, high social and economic equality, and low public corruption, Denmark, Norway and Sweden also share historical and linguistic traditions (Martela et al. 2020). As crucial as it is to highlight these similarities, it is equally significant to highlight that every country in this region has distinctive characteristics that underscore its uniqueness. Nevertheless, and in order to be able to draw a substantial comparative on this particular project, we will be following this region searching for differences in their political traditions that could explain the different approaches to fighting the pandemic.

That said, and taking into consideration that our claim solely refers to the politics applied amid the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic, we do argue that although it is possible to highlight common patters among the responses that Norway and Denmark had to the first wave of the pandemic, the politics applied by the Swedish government could be categorized as an outlier, making us address anew the alleged <<Swedish exceptionalism>>.

In order to support our claims, it is crucial to first clarify what we mean when we are referring to the first wave of the covid-19 in Europe. Likewise, the measures taken by the fellow Nordics during the first stage of the pandemic will be listed and explained in order to be able to draw a comparison. Ultimately and during this chapter, it is of great importance to keep in mind that it is by no means the intention to asses or evaluate the measures taken by Sweden. The aim is to merely list the adopted policies, in order to prepare the ground for trying to find convincing explanation for the application of these measures.

3.1. Background: the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Europe

As it is widely known, the Sars-CoV-2 outbreak or Sars-CoV-2 pandemic - more commonly acknowledged as the coronavirus or Covid-19 pandemic - is an ongoing global pandemic, first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, which was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization in January 2020. The aim of this section will be to disclose the details of the pandemic in Scandinavia.

Firstly, it is of great importance to delimit the time period we aim to analyze. That said, the period this chapter is going to cover goes from January 2020 till August 2020. The reasons behind this choice are diverse; first are foremost, we do consider that the initial response to

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the pandemic could be more representative of the organizational cultures we are analyzing;

after all, certain approaches could have changed overtime due to external factors. The first political response would be, therefore, the one that would really inform us about the nature of the government and the society we are examining. In addition, this delimitation also responds to practical reasons; the pandemic is an ongoing phenomena that right now needs of delimitation in order to be analyzed. Since the only separation most experts have decided on are the so called <<waves of the pandemic>> we have decided to analyze what was later known as the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe, or as we have beforehand stated, the first eight months of the year 2020 (Plümper and Neumayer;2020).

Moving forward, as already mentioned, this section of the paper will be focused on providing all the relevant information for the analysis of the first wave of the pandemic in Scandinavia.

For fulfilling such a task, it has been decided to include the most relevant demographic and healthcare indicators that could have influenced the management of the pandemic. Likewise, the first measures that were taken during the pandemic will be listed in a separated section.

A section dealing with the specific legal framework relevant for the pandemic will also be included. The claim we are trying to back up through these sections is the following: among the analyzed region and during the first eight months of the year 2020, Sweden behaved as an outlier among the analyzed region, and in contrast to its neighboring regions imposed non-restrictive, non-binding measures. In order to support this claim, one section of this chapter will be dedicated to bring together all the measures taken by the Scandinavian countries amidst the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, in order to uncover Sweden as the outlier.

3.2. Relevant background characteristics of Denmark, Norway and Sweden During this section of the paper, we will present an overview on both the demographic data and the healthcare systems of all three countries. In order to make this comparison more comprehensive, we have included two tables that collect the most relevant indicators for this study.

Globally famous for their welfare-state model with extensive social benefits, Denmark, Norway and Sweden share historical, geographical, linguistic and social ties. These ties have propitiated close economic and diplomatic relationships. Their proximity, including deep

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cultural, political, economic similarities and interdependences, provide a backdrop for examining the nature of the Covid-19 outbreak in each of the three countries.

The similarities these countries hold in terms of governance and regional organization generate the perfect setting for performing a comparative analysis. As the data collected in Table 1 indicates, the Scandinavian countries follow somehow similar demographic trends to those of the western world, namely: “Population growth is largely concentrated in the urban areas while many remote and sparsely populated areas face population decline and high rates of population ageing”

(Nordic Co-operation;2018). As a general comment on all three systems and also following the trend of most western societies, the always growing demographic tendencies found in Table 1 hint towards an escalated pressure on the welfare states´ sustainability (Pearsson;2011).

Furthermore, there are a few, crucial differences among the three that should also be taken into account when performing this analysis; Sweden has by far the largest population of the three, whereas Denmark is by far the most densely populated country. In addition,

“municipalities and regions (...) experience very different, often contrasting, demographic trends, presenting specific opportunities and challenges to each” (Nordic Co-operation;2018).

These critical differences, paired with almost identical results on the rest of the indicators, which have been pointed out as critical or risk factors for the development of the pandemic country wise, generate a perfect canvas for a comparative analysis of the employed policies for the management of the coronavirus pandemic.

Table 1. Demographic data relevant to the impact of Covid-19 in Denmark, Norway and Sweden (Desson et al.; 2020).

Denmark Norway Sweden

Government Type Parliamentary constitutional monarchy

Parliamentary constitutional monarchy

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Regional Organization / Administrative division

5 regions

98 municipalities

11 counties/regions 433 municipalities

3 regions, 25 provinces, 21 counties, 290 municipalities

Population (million) 5,806 5,385 10,23

Population density per km²

136 15 25,4

% Pop. above 65 19.97 % 17.27 % 20.2 %

Life expectancy at birth (years)

80,8 82,51 82,5

GDP/Capita (€) 53,760 67,730 46,160

Unemployment rate prior to Covid-19 (%)

4.91% 3.35% 6.8%

Diabetes 6,1% 7,5% 7,2%

Obesity 13,2% 11% 13%

Alcohol Consumption (liters of pure alcohol per capita 2017)

9,1L 7L 8,83L

Tobacco Use (% of adult population smoking)

17% 10 % 10%

(Desson et al.;2020), (European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, OECD, and European Commision;2017), (OECD and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies;2019a), (World Health Organization;2021), (Sefton;2020).

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As indicated by the World Health Organization (2020) and collected in Table 1, there were several risk factors associated with the coronavirus, that is to say, certain sectors of the population could be more affected by the coronavirus due to certain health conditions;

namely, “older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness”. However, as we can observe through the data collection, “the population structure in the combined age group 65 – 80+

years in each country are largely the same” (Sefton;2020).

As we can see from the demographic data presented in Table 1, the prevalence of important risk factors among the population are also quite similar in all three countries, therefore there was no substantial difference that could have prompted one country to act much differently than the others. In addition, and taking into account that one of the “most common explanations for the discrepancy was due to differences in age distribution, that alone cannot explain why some 75 percent of COVID-19 related deaths in the Nordics happened in Sweden” (Sefton;2020).

Therefore, the demographic analysis of the three countries indicates that there is no determining factor to explain the different type of management in the Swedish case.

Therefore, it is necessary to examine, in the aftermath, the existing differences in the healthcare systems of the Scandinavian countries, in order to determine if a differential factor can be encountered in these systems. In other words, for understanding the different management strategies when facing this crisis, it is of great importance to compile the minutiae of the healthcare systems of the aforementioned countries.

Table 2. Healthcare System Overviews for Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland Prior to Covid-19 Outbreak

Denmark Norway Sweden

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Healthcare Financing Scheme

Financed through local- regional and municipal - taxation with integrated funding and provision of health care at the regional level

Funded primarily by general taxes and by payroll

contributions shared by employers and employees

Financed primarily through taxes levied by county councils and municipalities

Administrative level

Primary Healthcare

Secondary Healthcare

Municipalities

Health corporations (state controlled)

Regions and local authorities

Not specified

Regions

Health

Spending/Capita (€)

3,831 4,459 4,019

Number of physicians (GP/Specialist) per 1000 inhabitants

366 442 412

Number of nurses per 1000 inhabitants

1009 1774 1088

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Hospital beds per 100.000 inhabitants

2.61 3.60 2.22

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds per

100.000 inhabitants 246 343 235

(Desson et al.;2020); (Kittelsen et al. 2009); (Persson 2011) Throughout Table 2, we can see that there are, in fact, few differences in between the healthcare systems of the Scandinavian countries and that these countries organizational culture continues to be almost identical on this sense; however, among this apparent homogeneity, certain striking, crucial differences can be found (Persson;2011). These disparities are mostly related to “how the systems are organized in terms of centralization and decentralization, the use of incentives to get the organizations to adhere national directives and how well integrated primary and secondary health care is” (Kittelsen et al.;2009:17).

That said, Norway is the country that disposes and uses more resources and labor costs per capita; it also possesses the lowest productivity level among the three; being a decentralized system, “the government owns the four regional health authorities that manage hospital services and employ staff” (Ursin, Skjesol, and Tritter;2020:664). The municipalities are responsible for primary care, long-term care and social services, and while general practitioners are self-employed they are later on integrated into the public system via contracts (ídem). That said, while Sweden relies on regions for the responsibility of the primary and specialist healthcare, the Norwegian health care is divided between two pillars of public sector (Persson;2011:10).

The Danish case is slightly different. Both regional and local authorities have shared responsibility when it comes to primary healthcare, but the country operates on a more centralized way than Sweden, with the similar handicap of “a lack of communication” among local and regional authorities (Kittelsen et al., 2009:18).

However, and although it would be wrong to deny that the slight differences among these systems could have triggered slightly different responses throughout the pandemic, most experts have agreed that the differences encountered within the healthcare systems are not

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enough to produce such a different scenario, as the resources they had at hand when dealing with the pandemic were quite similar (Sefton;2020). Therefore, it is crucial to carefully examine the politics and societal measures that were applied during the first wave of the coronavirus in the aforementioned countries, as well as listing the different policies that were applied by the contrasting governments, since this could be the key in order to disclose Sweden as an outlier.

3.3. Political responses to the first wave of the pandemic: Scandinavia

As we have mentioned during the introduction, the global attempt of trying to contain the spread of the coronavirus required “extensive public cooperation and compliance with public health policies to be effective” (Nilsen et al.; 2020:2). Both politician and public health authorities were eager to apply certain non-medical measures, such as social distancing and lockdowns.

The severity of these measures, as well as the toughness of their application, was dependent on each national government. As a general comment, and as can be seen in the following figure extracted from the OXFORD COVID-19 Government Response Stringency index, the measures imposed by the Swedish government were more lax than that of its neighbors, especially at the peak of the health crisis, in between March and April 2020. After the first wave, which causes a lot of human costs in Sweden, the government imposes certain measures that are maintained in a more sustained way until the end of the first wave. As we have stated previously, through this work we seek to find the mechanisms behind that initial Swedish response, to discover what caused an initial reaction so different to the one offered by the other Scandinavian governments, that opted for severe measures until the situation de-scaled.

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Figure 1.

(OCHA;2020).

Throughout this section, we aim to expose and compare the different non-medical measures that were applied in the Scandinavian countries amid the first wave of the pandemic, as well as the details surrounding the application of these measures. In order to have a more dynamic look on the measures, timelines have been included in each subsection, as well as tables whose aim is to recompile the measures introduced by each of the governments.

3.3.1. The Danish response

Denmark was one of the first European countries to close down its public spaces to stem the spread of coronavirus, shutting its borders, schools and restaurants in mid-March.

The response to the coronavirus crisis in Denmark was “primarily conducted by government agencies through executive orders” (Lauta;2020:2). This nimble reaction by the Danish government has been pointed out as a more than possible reason to the fact that even at its peak, “the outbreak in Denmark was comparatively small in scale” (idem:4) during the first wave.

Broadly speaking, the Danish government “ implemented regulations that mandated a lockdown of the country’s borders and the closing of schools, restaurants, and shopping malls” (Nilsen et al. 2020), meaning that the measures imposed by Denmark were quite strict, the most remarkable characteristic being the promptness of the governmental action. As a matter of fact, early

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February, when the very first case of coronavirus was detected in Denmark, the Danish Ministry of Health added COVID-19 to the list of contagious diseases covered by the Epidemics Acts (Retsinformation 2020a).

On the aftermath, “the first lockdown measures came into effect in Denmark in mid-March”

(Drugda;2020:207), with the Danish PM ordering the closure of all the teaching facilities (Retsinformation; 2020b), the closure being provisional at first and afterwards prolonged. In addition, the Minister of Justice adopted temporary restrictions on the visitation rights of the incarcerated population, the visitation access to vulnerable people in nursing homes and the hospitals, in order to prevent the risk of containment or spread of COVID-19 to and from these facilities (Drugda;2020:208); a strict border control was also imposed, as we can see throughout the next table.

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Table 3. Danish government COVID-19 policies

(Desson et al. 2020, Marin;2020, Collington 2020, Drugda; 2020, Mishra et al. 2021) Non-binding:

Traveling: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs advised Danish citizens against non-essential travel abroad until April 13, 2020, and urged them to return home if possible.

Binding:

Facemasks:

 The Government advised for the use of masks inside closed spaces Gatherings:

 Danish PM Mette Frederiksen announced that outdoor gatherings of more than 10 people are forbidden.

Educational institutions:

 Closure of all public and private educational institutions from kindergartens to universities.

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International Travel Ban:

 Temporary border controls were expanded to all Danish borders. Only citizens or residents were temporarily allowed to return to the country

Work from home:

 All non-essential civil servants were sent home.

Hospitals and nursing homes:

 Visitor access to nursing homes and hospitals were restricted, with the only exception of critically ill or dying patients.

______________________________________________________________________

The Danish Parliament has attempted to retain some capacity to scrutinize government action by setting up a subcommittee to the standing Committee on Rules of Procedure, which has a special mandate to evaluate the government’s handling of the crisis. Additionally, the government was also held to account by NGOs and civil society organizations (Mishra et al. 2021).

Regarding social measures, the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was involved in several negotiations with trade unions and employers´ associations, after which it was announced through a press conference that the Danish government would partially fund the salaries of workers affected by the pandemic, encouraging the danish citizens to quarantine in case they perceive symptoms related to the disease, the main aim of this employment package being to buffer the macroeconomic ruptures that were expected due to the pandemic (Collington;2020).

This quick and joint reaction brought about easy control of the situation, and as early as mid-April the Danish government began a slow but steady de-escalation of its measures, with a gradual opening of the educational institutions (Drugda;2020).

From an international standpoint, it is important to highlight that the response of the danish government to the first wave of the pandemic has been described and perceived as lawful and successful. As a matter of fact, the population in Denmark had throughout the lockdown

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continuously “expressed historically high confidence in both politicians and public institutions, and there was massive support for the state’s crisis management” (Lauta;2020:6).

A more detailed timeline on the Danish performance can be found below these lines, Figure 2 ((Desson et al.;2020); (Kittelsen et al. 2009); (Persson 2011)).

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3.3.2. The Norwegian response

The Norwegian strategy amid the first wave of coronavirus was, very much like the Danish response, characterized by its response speed, focused mostly on limiting the infection from abroad while increasing health service capacity.

The policy emphasis quickly shifted to concerns about economic impacts, the need to buttress both employers and employees and support specific industries such as domestic air travel.

For starters, coronavirus was classified as a notifiable disease in Norway as early as the 31^st of January (Regjeringen;2020). As already explained, municipalities were responsible for

“detecting, reporting and surveilling the spread of infectious diseases” (Ursin, Skjesol, and Tritter;2020:670). While at the start the testing was limited to hospitals, it did not take long until testing sites were established by the municipalities after the first case of coronavirus was detected in Norway during late February. On the aftermath, and during early March the Norwegian Government introduced newly redacted measures that intended to control the spread of the disease, mainly restrictions to travel and group meetings; likewise, leisure and meeting venues of any kind were recommended to stop all their activity. Another package of policies was enacted in order to cushion the economic disruptions that the pandemic could cause: a work furlough scheme and loan guarantees for businesses (Ursin, Skjesol, and Tritter;2020:609). During early May, although in a much more cautious way than Denmark, the Norwegian government began a slow de-escalation mainly focused on helping their citizens to return to workplaces. During the very same press conference the government presented a plan to gradually open the national borders for travel (ídem:609).

As a matter of fact, within the table underneath, we can see a representation of all the policies, binding and non-binding, that the Norwegian government introduced during the early stage of the covid-19 pandemic:

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Table 4. Norwegian government COVID-19 policies

Sweden Amid The Pandemic, The Scandinavian Outlier? An analysis of the enacted policies during the first stage of the covid-19 outbreak.