Asymmetrisk nordisk pandemihantering – En komparativ studie av orsakerna bakom Danmarks, Finlands, Norges och Sveriges skilda smittskyddsåtgärder under covid-19-pandemins första våg

Sammanfattning: This essay studies the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) employed by governments and other authorities in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden throughout the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. The NPIs are accounted for and coded using a policy instrument framework by Evert Vedung. Moreover, are the NPI selections of the countries’ politicians and authorities explained through explorative motive analyses, informed by policy instrument choice theories. Finally, through a comparative design, national differences of NPI selections are explained by comparing identified intents and conceptions. The descriptive findings include that Sweden was the only country that neither closed their borders to Europe, closed all education levels, or introduced quarantine measures. Furthermore comparatively, was Sweden’s people limit of gatherings set substantially higher. The explanatory findings include that Swedish conceptions, true or false, of the effectiveness of voluntary measures, paired with liberal preferences for non-coercive instruments, may explain Sweden’s less strict response across several measure categories. Other possibly conducive factors to Swedish choices of information instruments are preferences for enduring NPIs and relatively weaker intents to limit the spread of infection. Choices of regulation instruments in Finland and Denmark may be attributed to a considered necessity of universal compliance.