The role of trust and citizenship norms in understanding youth compliance with Sweden’s voluntary approach to the COVID-19 pandemic

In spring 2020, Sweden’s official management of the COVID-19 pandemic through a voluntary compliance approach created a flurry of interest, wonder, and puzzlement. It was called “unorthodox”, “a deadly folly”, and a “remarkable exception involving “befuddlingly soft measures”. Swedish scholars explain the Swedish approach by Sweden’s unique and exceptional model of governing, in particular the institutional structure of the Swedish public administration and the government’s willingness to delegate public health policymaking to expert-oriented public agencies. However, a central model component not sufficiently uncovered is the role of the special relationship between the Swedish state and its citizens that puts considerable responsibility for the common good into the hands of individual citizens. Two general governing principles underly this relationship: the principle of “freedom with responsibility” and the principle of government steering without coercion, even in crisis situations. Sweden’s COVID-19 approach has, thus, to large degree relied on individual citizens who are expected to be able, ready, and willing to follow official (voluntary) recommendations. This trust-based approach is in stark contrast to many countries that imposed lockdowns backed up by legal sanctions. The general governing principles involve three implicit assumptions about the role of trust in Swedish society. First, citizens are expected to have political trust in governing institutions, believing that these institutions aim to safeguard both their own and society’s well-being. Therefore, citizens are expected to be willing to (voluntarily) follow their policy measures. Second, citizens are expected to trust each other, to have interpersonal trust, which implies the belief that others mean them no intentional harm and can be expected to act in a pro-social way. As such, citizens are expected to follow recommendations as they expect that others will do so too. Third, the state should be able to depend on its inhabitants to be good citizens who see it as part of their societal responsibility or duty to follow recommendations - even if it requires personal effort and sacrifice for the common good. Our study asks what role political trust, interpersonal trust, and citizenship norms have played in Swedish youth’s following of the voluntary COVID-19 recommendations, along with questions about whether their views of how well other people follow them and their own socio-economic circumstances affect their own level of compliance. We focus on Swedish youth as this group of citizens complies less with the COVID-19 measures than other age groups. This makes it particularly important to understand their reasons for (not) following the recommendations. Our analyses show that young people who adhere to the duty-based citizenship norm, who have more trust in the public health agency, and who believe that others follow the COVID-19 recommendations report to better follow those recommendations themselves. We find no relationship between engaged or critical citizenship norms, interpersonal trust and trust in government, and following the COVID-19 recommendations. These findings have implications for both academic research and public policy in that it helps understand better what promotes youngsters’ pro-social behavior in the pandemic and how the Swedish governing model works in practice.