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Danish Business owners more critical of democratic institutions than their Swedish counterparts during the COVID-19

Julie Hassing Nielsen and Agustin Goenaga, photo.

Associate Professor Julie Hassing Nielsen's and Associate Professor Agustin Goenaga's findings 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.

Popular science summary

Business owners in Denmark, experiencing a strict lockdown, expressed lower trust and satisfaction with the national pandemic strategy compared to other occupational groups. This was not the case with their Swedish counterparts, our new research article concludes. 

Interestingly, Danish business owners also expressed greater concern about the concentration of power by the government, contrasting their Swedish colleagues. 

Our findings highlight that the costs imposed by the pandemic strategies to different occupational groups influenced not only their assessment of those strategies but also their evaluations of democracy.

Source: Panel survey data collected by Epinion in Sweden and Denmark (March-June 2020). 

Authors: Associate Professor Julie Hassing Nielsen and Associate Professor Agustin Goenaga 

Title of article: Back to Business? Business-Owners and Their Responses to COVID-19 Policies in a Comparative Perspective. 

Link to article: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9477.12297