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Researcher: Local government was key to managing the pandemic

A major Nordic study shows that local authorities played a crucial role in handling Covid-19 – and why trust and flexibility are key to surviving future crises.

“We would not have been able to manage the pandemic as we did if we had not been able to mobilise the voluntary and private sectors,” says Professor Are Vegard Haug.
Matthew Davidson Matthew Davidson
Presented by: Presented by: Presented by: Oslo Metropolitan University
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The Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t just a health crisis. 

OsloMet 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 at how the Nordic decentralised governance model fared during 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 strained healthcare systems.

The research 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 gets through a pandemic.

Local is the operational level

The Nordics have the most decentralised governments in the world. It is a core part of how they are run. 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. 

OsloMet researcher Are Vegard Haug describes the Covid-19 pandemic as "perhaps the largest stress test of Nordic and worldwide governance structures since the Second World War."

“Local autonomy wasn't abolished, but it became heavily limited,” says Haug. 

The central governments made sweeping decisions about quarantines, travel restrictions, and public health measures. The degree of this central takeover varied across the Nordics.

Denmark and Iceland’s central governments effectively took control, imposing uniform regulations nationwide. Norway, however, gave municipalities more flexibility, allowing them to introduce stricter measures when local outbreaks occurred. 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. But this hands-off approach came at a high 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 changed course in response to mounting public pressure and rising death rates.

Trust – the core of effective crisis management

Researchers began studying the pandemic response almost as soon as the pandemic started. The team consists of 22 researchers from across the Nordics, including the autonomous regions of Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Åland. 

They developed surveys and analysed responses from over 5,000 people across more than 1,100 municipalities in the Nordic region, in seven languages. They also surveyed mayors, heads of municipal administrations, and managers in four different sectors.

Trust turned out to be a key factor in how successful government responses were during the pandemic. 

Nordic countries are generally more trusting than much of the world. 

“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,” says Haug.

When governments performed well, trust remained high, even as strict regulations were introduced.

But this wasn’t universal. In Sweden, trust in the government started out lower but increased as the pandemic progressed 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 made it clear that a single policy could not work everywhere. Many policies that were meant for large cities caused unintended consequences in small communities, and vice versa. 

The differences were not 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,” says Haug.

Many students were suddenly isolated from friends and family. People in abusive households were stuck in dangerous situations. The long-term mental health effects of these policies are still not fully known.

Despite these challenges, the 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. 

“We can’t have a one-size-fits-all approach,” says Haug.

According to Haug, local governments are better able to respond effectively when they have the authority to adjust policies to local conditions and the specific needs of their communities. 

Working on two axes

The study highlighted the benefits of ‘polycentric governance,’ a system that integrates both vertical capacity – coordination between different levels of government – and horizontal capacity, which involves civil society, the private sector, and volunteer organisations. 

The pandemic revealed weaknesses in both areas, especially in countries where ties between local authorities and the broader community were weak.

Norway was able to rely on its volunteer sectors, with local authorities mobilising volunteers to help manage healthcare and logistical needs. 

By contrast, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark relied more on top-down approaches, which limited their ability to adapt and use community resources as effectively.

On the vertical side, Sweden’s shift to more private healthcare limited local expertise and weakened 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 mobilise the voluntary and private sectors,” he says.

Building this capacity, he says, will be key to handling future global crises.

Preparing for future crises

As the world recovers from Covid-19, Haug’s research points to several crucial lessons for future crisis management. 

First, decentralisation is a powerful tool. National governments should give local authorities more freedom to act based on local conditions.

Second, fairness must be central to planning. Policies need to reflect how people experience crises differently depending on age, living conditions, and socioeconomic status. 

Finally, building capacity across government, society, and the private sector is essential. This aligns with the ongoing work in the Nordic countries to strengthen 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 process of negotiation, 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 when the next crisis hits.

References:

Haug, A.V. Crisis Management, Governance and COVID-19. Pandemic Policy and Local Government in the Nordic Countries, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024. DOI: 10.4337/9781035336531

Sefton, T. & Haug, A.V. The Price of Safety: Assessing the Acceptance of COVID-19 Measures in Nordic Countries, Scandinavian Journal of Public Administration, 2025. DOI: 10.58235/sjpa.34399

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