Nudging a nation through a pandemic: Assessing Sweden’s divergent coronavirus strategy

Corona Crisis: Once Upon a Pandemic

Sweden’s highly decentralized system of government, efficient under normal circumstances, is an important factor that influenced the idiosyncratic Swedish strategy for managing the coronavirus crisis. Given the relatively constrained central political authority, with expert agencies and local administrations wielding a great deal of power in the Swedish system, could Sweden have possibly managed the crisis any differently, perhaps more effectively, or was the liberal approach the only option? Diverging from the strict coercive measures of most other European countries, Sweden’s far less stringent response amounted to a series of “nudges” to encourage Swedes to take the necessary precautions to contain the spread of COVID-19, according to Prof. Jon Pierre of Gothenburg University who joins the podcast to share the results of his analysis of Sweden’s strategy in comparison with other countries.