Navigating in the global discourse

The case of Swedish Covid-19 strategy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7146192
AutoresMarjaana Rautalin (0000-0002-9037-2793, University of Helsinki, autor correspondente), P Alasuutari (0000-0003-4111-9641, Tampere University)
Ano2025
Volume68
Fascículo3
Páginas370-388
Data de publicação2025-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoActa Sociologica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0001-6993 • E-ISSN: 1502-3869
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00016993241301604
OpenAlexW4405211773
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas59

This article examines Sweden's COVID-19 strategy from the perspective of the global epistemic field. We propose that the policy choices of national governments are conditioned by the global epistemic field that constitutes the problem, the range of potential techniques to handle it, and relevant viewpoints used in assessing their advantages and risks. New, innovative techniques can emerge, and choices can vary, but they are debated and justified in terms of the evolving global set of discourses premised on the fundaments of the epistemic field. In this article, we examine to what extent deviant policies are part of the global set of discourses that evolved at the outset of the pandemic. To address this question, we take Sweden's COVID-19 strategy as an example and study how it was constructed and justified in the national public in 2020. The results of our empirical analysis show that the argument of epistemic field also applies to deviant policies. Even though Sweden's corona strategy deviated much from other countries, including its neighboring countries, the grounds of justification used in debating the strategy were consistent with the global epistemic field

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Geography · Linguistics · Outbreak · Pandemic · Political science · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Sociology · Higher Education Governance and Development · History · Medicine · Philosophy · Policy Transfer and Learning · Public Relations and Crisis Communication · Virology