COVID‐19 policies in Germany and their social, political, and psychological consequences

Abstract

Many policy analyses on COVID‐19 have been focusing on what kind of policies are implemented to contain the spread of COVID‐19. What seems equally important to explore are the social and political consequences of the confinement policies. Does the public support strict confinement policies? What are the social, political, and psychological consequences of the confinement policies? The question of how legitimate a policy is among the public is at the core of democratic theory. Its relevance also stems from the expected consequences of public support on behavior: The more someone supports a policy, the more someone is likely to follow the policy even if the policy is not strictly enforced. In this paper, we will focus on Germany, briefly summarize the main policies during the first 6 weeks of confinement and then explore political attitudes, risk perceptions, and the social consequences of the lockdown.

Politics and administration in times of crisis: Explaining the Swedish response to the COVID‐19 crisis

“…This feature, coupled with the character of this crisis that necessitates science‐based solutions, resulted in the prominence of the state epidemiologist in public discourse. State epidemiologists have risen to prominence in other countries (such as Germany, Greece, and Ireland—see Naumann et al., 2020; Zahariadis et al., 2020 and Colfer, 2020, respectively) as well, but in Sweden, it was mainly Anders Tegnell, rather than politicians, who was the public face of the Swedish strategy and the one communicating directly to the public. His identity as a bureaucrat allowed him to communicate and legitimize the conveyance of scientific uncertainty, which is an integral component of the pandemic (Versluis et al., 2019).…”

Switzerland's COVID‐19 policy response: Consociational crisis management and neo‐corporatist reopening

“…Some criticism also came from the Swiss branch of Amnesty International because of the limitations of citizens' rights during the lockdown-especially following police interventions in local protests-and from Amnesty and consumers' organizations because of threats to data protection, given that the Federal Council initiated the development of an official contact tracing phone app for the country (Amnesty International, 2020a. Survey results, however, generally showed continuing support for government policy, similar to Germany (Naumann et al, 2020). An opinion survey jointly commissioned by newspapers of the three Swiss linguistic regions was performed between April 22 and April 28, after the Federal Council announced the first relaxation of measures in April and May.…”

The COVID-19 pandemic and subjective well-being: longitudinal evidence on satisfaction with work and family

“…Many countries across Europe went into lockdown in mid-March 2020 to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (Daly et al 2020;Lejeune 2020). This also had immediate effects on the economy and labour markets (Anger et al 2020;Möhring et al 2020;Naumann et al 2020). The trade-off between the health of the population and the economy have usually been the main focus of policy makers.…”