Coping with the Unforeseen: Danish Management of the Covid-19 Crisis

This paper investigates how Danish authorities responded to the covid-19-crisis in the winter and spring of 2020. The analysis builds on an unprecedented access to internal emails, decision notes and drafts, and meeting minutes. The paper shows how the central organizations of government, especially the Prime Minister’s Office and the Danish Health Authority fought hard over the 1) understanding of the new disease, 2) the decisions that should be taken in response to the pandemic, and 3) over the organization of the Danish management of the covid-19 crisis. A central finding of the paper is that prime ministerial intervention broke up existing organizational patterns furthering an extremely swift crisis response driven by political demands. The rich data material also allows us to address general questions concerning the roles of ministers and civil servants in handling the crisis. Furthermore, the paper sheds light over the question whether the formal organization of bureaucracy hampered or furthered the development of a covid-19-strategy.