Democracy and technocracy in Sweden's Experience of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Sweden’s management of the coronavirus pandemic, beginning in early 2020, hasbeen much discussed because it deviated from other countries’ equivalents. Set inthe context of scholarly debate about the balance between politicians and experts inpolitical decision-making, we argue that a necessary condition for this case of Swedishexceptionalism was the manner of policy-making adopted by the Swedish authorities. Inthis article, we describe this policy-making procedure, which involved a radical form ofdelegation by elected politicians to appointed experts, and seek to explain how it cameabout. We focus on the 1st year of the pandemic, and use media reports and other publicdocuments, including parts of a public inquiry, as our empirical material