About
Therese Sefton is a PhD candidate at Oslo Metropolitan University, specialization in Business Administration, Innovation and Governance. Her research focus is currently on crisis management in Nordic municipalities, in the NRC funded research project POLYGOV (www.polygov.org).
The current research focus is on crisis management, local government, public administration and governance, decision-making and proportionality, in the Nordic context, with a strong interest in aspects of democracy, legitimacy and accountability, and citizenship,
She holds an M.Phil. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Oslo. Her educational background is interdisciplinary and includes Political Science, History, international relations, global studies.
Therese is also interested in questions related to regional cooperation, and international relations, in particular the relationship between Sweden and Norway, and Nordic Cooperation during- and in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis.
Field of study
Democracy Ethics Human rights Local politics and administration Health and welfare politics Normativity National readiness and crisis management Legitimacy Governance Control and Trust Proportionality
Research groups
Research projects
Completed research projects
-
Crisis Management in a Polycentric Nordic Local Democracy: Different Governance Structures – Different Results? (POLYGOV)
The overall goal of the project is to identify the differences in the Nordic countries’ handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the outcomes thereof and to relate these differences to policy, governance, organisation and management.
Publications and research
Scientific publications
Sefton, Therese
; Ubaid, Rami Ismail
(2025).
Crisis Governance at the Local Level: Municipal Decision‐Making During COVID‐19.
Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management.
Vol. 33.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.70094
Sefton, Therese
;
Haug, Are Vegard
(2025).
The Price of Safety: Assessing the Acceptance of COVID-19 Measures in Nordic Countries.
Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration (SPJA).
https://doi.org/10.58235/sjpa.34399
Haug, Are Vegard
; Baldersheim, Harald;
Sefton, Therese
(2024).
How (un)reasonable were the pandemic measures according to citizens?.
Haug, Are Vegard (Ed.).
Crisis Management, Governance and COVID-19 : Pandemic Policy and Local Government in the Nordic Countries.
Edward Elgar Publishing.
https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035336531
Nordensvärd, Johan;
Sefton, Therese
; Godenhjelm, Sebastian
(2023).
Interpreting the state-citizen nexus in contemporary Nordic legal and social citizenship: the case of divergence in restriction on freedom of movement as a mitigation policy in the COVID-19 pandemic.
Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy.
Vol. 39.
https://doi.org/10.1017/ics.2023.5
