Sweden’s approach to managing the coronavirus crisis was dominated by a series of nonbinding guidelines and recommendations that served as the framework for contagion mitigation measures throughout 2020 (Ludvigsson 2020, Petridou 2020), that is, “nudges against pandemics”...

France’s governance of the pandemic crisis, its performances as well as its setbacks, has to be placed into a larger context in two respects: First, when the pandemic hit France, the country was already feeling the effects of a certain number of both past and ongoing crises;...

Switzerland was one of the first European countries to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. As with other countries that were affected early, Switzerland took longer to respond than countries that were affected later (Kohler et al. 2020; Wenger et al. 2020), because...

The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered Germany’s political, economic and social systems a severe and comprehensive stress test. Judging on the basis of the first year of the pandemic, the country and its institutions have demonstrated, overall, considerable resilience. So far,...

Turkey has long suffered from political and economic instabilities. As widely observed, the authoritarian tendencies of the government strengthened following the Gezi Park protests in 2013 and reached a zenith in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt in 2016. The...

The Greek government was initially unprepared to face a crisis on the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, but ultimately reacted to it swiftly and effectively. Although it did not pursue large-scale testing among the population, it was able to effectively enforce two periods of...

Having suffered high infection and death rates as well as a deep economic contraction, the United Kingdom has faced several profound challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic. Some of this was due to factors largely beyond the control of the incumbent governments at...

Hungary was badly prepared for the COVID-19 pandemic. The country’s crisis management system, healthcare system and education system were already in bad shape, and the Hungarian economy proved vulnerable to the pandemic as a result of its strong dependence on the car...

The report focuses on the COVID-19 situation in the United States during the year 2020, which was also the last of the Trump presidency. That year, the country entered the COVID-19 crisis with a specific mix of strengths and weaknesses. As one of the world’s wealthiest and...

The Irish government introduced coronavirus-related restrictions relatively early on 12 March 2020, the day after the WHO declared a global pandemic. This entailed the closure of schools, limitations on economic and social activity, and the interdiction of large gatherings....