Crisis Management, Governance and COVID-19 : Pandemic Policy and Local Government in the Nordic Countries

Abstract

This book presents the results of a four-year comparative study of the crisis management, organisation, and functioning of local democracies in the Nordic countries: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. Our approach takes bottom-up perspectives on crises management, including those of local citizens, bureaucrats, and local politicians. The book is written against the backdrop of the divergent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and compares the local and regional coordination and management strategies employed as the pandemic unfolded from March 2020 to May 2023. The contributors to this volume are a research team that consists of scholars from 10 Nordic universities in the five Nordic countries, including the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. The book has its origins in the project POLYGOV: Crisis Management in a Polycentric Nordic Local Democracy: Different Governance Structures – Different Results? This project was funded by the Research Council of Norway (grant number: 326136).