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Back to Business? Business-Owners and Their Responses to COVID-19 Policies in a Comparative Perspective

Nielsen, Julie Hassing LU and Goenaga, Agustín LU (2025) In Scandinavian Political Studies 48(1).
Abstract

While necessary to protect human lives, many of the measures implemented by governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic imposed significant costs on the population. Drawing on an original representative survey fielded during the first wave of COVID-19 in April–June 2020 in Sweden and Denmark, we examine how members of different occupational groups evaluated their government's pandemic strategies. Despite sharing several institutional, cultural, and political features, Denmark adopted an extensive lockdown, while Sweden largely relied on individual responsibility. We find that Danish business-owners, whose incomes were more vulnerable to the economic costs of a strict lockdown, expressed lower trust and satisfaction in the national... (More)

While necessary to protect human lives, many of the measures implemented by governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic imposed significant costs on the population. Drawing on an original representative survey fielded during the first wave of COVID-19 in April–June 2020 in Sweden and Denmark, we examine how members of different occupational groups evaluated their government's pandemic strategies. Despite sharing several institutional, cultural, and political features, Denmark adopted an extensive lockdown, while Sweden largely relied on individual responsibility. We find that Danish business-owners, whose incomes were more vulnerable to the economic costs of a strict lockdown, expressed lower trust and satisfaction in the national pandemic strategy and greater concern about the concentration of power by the government, compared to all other Danish occupational categories as well as to business-owners in Sweden. Our findings thus indicate that exposure to the economic costs of pandemic strategies was not only associated with more critical views towards public health measures, but that it also made citizens more likely to see them as violations to democratic rights.

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author
and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
business, comparative politics, COVID-19, democratic attitudes, occupation, survey data
in
Scandinavian Political Studies
volume
48
issue
1
article number
e12297
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • scopus:85212479795
ISSN
0080-6757
DOI
10.1111/1467-9477.12297
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
41b8ed88-e8e7-479f-8d9d-d23bd2e52b31
date added to LUP
2025-03-03 12:08:16
date last changed
2025-04-04 15:19:22
@article{41b8ed88-e8e7-479f-8d9d-d23bd2e52b31,
  abstract     = {{<p>While necessary to protect human lives, many of the measures implemented by governments to contain the COVID-19 pandemic imposed significant costs on the population. Drawing on an original representative survey fielded during the first wave of COVID-19 in April–June 2020 in Sweden and Denmark, we examine how members of different occupational groups evaluated their government's pandemic strategies. Despite sharing several institutional, cultural, and political features, Denmark adopted an extensive lockdown, while Sweden largely relied on individual responsibility. We find that Danish business-owners, whose incomes were more vulnerable to the economic costs of a strict lockdown, expressed lower trust and satisfaction in the national pandemic strategy and greater concern about the concentration of power by the government, compared to all other Danish occupational categories as well as to business-owners in Sweden. Our findings thus indicate that exposure to the economic costs of pandemic strategies was not only associated with more critical views towards public health measures, but that it also made citizens more likely to see them as violations to democratic rights.</p>}},
  author       = {{Nielsen, Julie Hassing and Goenaga, Agustín}},
  issn         = {{0080-6757}},
  keywords     = {{business; comparative politics; COVID-19; democratic attitudes; occupation; survey data}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{1}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Scandinavian Political Studies}},
  title        = {{Back to Business? Business-Owners and Their Responses to COVID-19 Policies in a Comparative Perspective}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12297}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/1467-9477.12297}},
  volume       = {{48}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}