Organised crisis volunteers, COVID-19, and the political steering of crisis management in Sweden

This article explores and analyses the activities of Swedish organised crisis volunteers during Covid-19. Based on a questionnaire and interviews, we set out to answer research questions on what characterised organised volunteerism during the pandemic, how organised volunteers experienced cooperation with local public actors and how they view political steering. We contribute to a growing literature on the role of volunteers and link that role to views on political steering, something that is rarely done in disaster research. Sweden is useful to explore because of how Covid-19 was managed; because there are organised crisis volunteers and a debate on how the Swedish system is steered. We show how organised volunteers adapted to changing needs and adopted new roles, that experiences of cooperation with local authorities varied and that calls were made for a stronger national leadership and for more explicit central political steering