The COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t just a health crisis. OsloMet senior researcher Are Vegard Haug describes it as «perhaps the largest stress test of Nordic and worldwide governance structures since the Second World War.»
Haug is a political scientist and project manager of the POLYGOV study that looked closely at how the Nordic decentralized governance model fared under the weight of the pandemic. Five years on, he found that the central governments may have set the rules, but it was local governments that were on the frontlines. Counties and municipalities were the ones making critical decisions and managing the day-to-day chaos of quarantines, school closures, and health system overloads.
POLYGOV revealed other important lessons for governments: crisis management can’t be one-size-fits-all, and trust in local authorities plays a massive role in how well a nation can weather a pandemic.
Sweden kept schools open and largely avoided quarantines. However, this hands-off approach came at a significant cost: death rates about ten times higher than their Nordic neighbors.
Local is the operational level
The Nordics have the most decentralized governments in the world. It is a core part of their governance model. The central government has the final say, but local governments are responsible for crucial day-to-day services like healthcare, education, and welfare. The most immediate decisions are made at the municipal and city levels.
The pandemic flipped all of this.
“Local autonomy wasn't abolished, but it became heavily circumscribed,” says Haug. The central governments made sweeping decisions about quarantines, travel restrictions, and health measures.
The degree of this central takeover varied across the Nordics.
Denmark and Iceland’s central governments effectively took control, imposing uniform regulations. On the other hand, Norway allowed municipalities more flexibility, letting them adapt and regulate more strictly when local outbreaks required it. This was effective, but sometimes led to confusion when local rules differed significantly between regions.
Sweden took the most unique (and controversial) approach, following a strategy of herd immunity and ‘soft governance’. They kept schools open and largely avoided quarantines. However, this hands-off approach came at a significant cost.
Adjusted for population size, the registered death toll was roughly ten times greater in Sweden than in Finland, Iceland, and Norway. The differences between Sweden and Denmark were smaller but still noticeable, with Sweden’s registered death toll being approximately four times larger than that of Denmark.
Sweden eventually reversed course in response to both mounting public pressure and rising mortality.
We would not have been able to manage the pandemic as we did if we had not been able to mobilize the voluntary and private sectors– Research Professor Are Vegard Haug
Trust: the core of effective crisis management
POLYGOV began studying the pandemic response almost as soon as the pandemic started. The team is made up of 22 researchers from across the Nordics, including the autonomous regions of Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Åland.
They developed surveys and analyzed responses from over 5000 people representing more than 1100 municipalities in the Nordic region and seven languages. They also surveyed mayors, municipal administration heads, and managers in four different sectors.
Trust turned out to be a critical factor in shaping the success of government responses to the pandemic.
Nordic countries are more trusting than much of the world. According to Haug, “trust in local authorities held steady throughout the pandemic. Citizens were willing to accept measures and restrictions because they had confidence in how their local governments were handling things.”
Performance was a big part of maintaining this trust, when governments performed well, trust remained high, even as strict regulations were implemented.
One policy could not work everywhere. Many policies that were meant for large cities caused unintended consequences in small communities, and vice versa– Are Vegard Haug
But this wasn’t universal. In Sweden, trust in the government started lower, but increased as the pandemic evolved and the government took more action. Haug says this was likely the result of the “rally 'round the flag effect” where people tend to support their governments in times of crisis.
One-size-fits-all doesn’t work
The pandemic showed that one policy could not work everywhere. Many policies that were meant for large cities caused unintended consequences in small communities, and vice versa.
The differences weren’t just geographic. They were socio-economic: “If you live in a small space, you stayed in that small studio apartment, knowing nobody, looking at your computer, for a year,” Haug explains. Many students were suddenly isolated from friends and family, and people in abusive households were stuck in dangerous situations. The lasting mental health consequences of these policies are still not fully known.
Despite these hardships, POLYGOV’s surveys showed that people found many measures, like social distancing and travel restrictions, to be very reasonable. Other measures, like Norway restricting access to vacation cabins, were deeply unpopular.
As Haug puts it, “we can’t have a one size fits all approach.”
Haug says local governments benefit from the power to adjust policies based on regional circumstances and the specific needs of their communities.
Working on two axes
The POLYGOV study showed the benefits of ‘polycentric governance’, a system that integrates both vertical capacity - coordination between different levels of government – and horizontal capacity – involving civil society, the private sector, and volunteer organization. The pandemic exposed gaps in both areas, particularly in countries with weak relationships between local authorities and the broader community.
Norway was able to rely on its volunteer sectors, with local authorities mobilizing volunteers to help manage healthcare and logistical needs. In contrast, countries like Finland, Iceland, and Denmark had more top-down responses that limited their capacity to adjust and mobilize community resources as effectively. On the vertical side, Sweden’s shift to more private healthcare limited local expertise and hobbled its response.
Haug argues that crisis response needs to build stronger connections between local governments, the private sector, and civil society. “We would not have been able to manage the pandemic as we did if we had not been able to mobilize the voluntary and private sectors,” Haug notes. Building this capacity, he says, will be key to handling future global crises.
Effective crisis management isn’t about controlling every detail from the top down. It’s about empowering local governments, fostering trust, and creating a system where decision-making can adapt to the needs of each community.– Are Vegard Haug
Preparing for future crises
As the world recovers from COVID-19, Haug’s research points to several crucial lessons for future crisis management.
First, decentralization is a powerful tool. National governments should give local authorities more freedom to act based on regional realities. Second, equity must be central to crisis planning. Policies must account for the different ways people experience crises based on factors like age, living conditions, and socio-economic status.
Finally, building capacity across government, society, and the private sector is essential for handling crises. This is in line with the ongoing work in the Nordic countries to develop overall preparedness plans.
Haug’s research shows that effective crisis management isn’t about controlling every detail from the top down. It’s about empowering local governments, fostering trust, and creating a system where decision-making can adapt to the needs of each community. From a multi-level governance perspective, implementing national policy gradually became a negotiation process with openings for adjustment along the way.
As Haug puts it, “trust is of absolute importance.” The more trust and collaboration local governments can build, the more resilient their societies will be to the next crisis.
References
Haug, A.V. (2024). Crisis Management, Governance and COVID-19. Pandemic Policy and Local Government in the Nordic Countries. Edward Elgar (open access) (elgaronline.com)
Sefton, T. and Haug, A.V. (2025). The Price of Safety: Assessing the Acceptance of COVID-19 Measures in Nordic Countries. Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration (publicera.kb.se)
