Balancing governance capacity and legitimacy ‐ how the Norwegian government handled the COVID‐19 crisis as a high performer

Christensen, Tom; Lægreid, Per

This paper addresses how the Norwegian government has handled the corona pandemic. Compared to many other countries Norway performs well in handling the crises and this must be understood in the context of competent politicians, a high trust society with a reliable and professional bureaucracy, a strong state, a good economic situation, a big welfare state and low density of the population. The government managed to control the pandemic rather quickly by adopting a suppression strategy, followed by a control strategy, based on a collaborative and pragmatic decision‐making style, successful communication with the public, a lot of resources and a high level of citizens' trust in government. The alleged success of the Norwegian case is about the relationship between crisis management capacity and legitimacy. Crisis management is most successful when it is able to combine democratic legitimacy with government capacity. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.