Design, data materials and analytical approaches

The units of analysis in the project are Nordic municipalities (selections) and regions, as well as the Danish autonomous territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands and the Finnish autonomous community of Åland. The regional level includes the state county administration (County Governors and alike), who on behalf of the state have significant power over the municipality’s coordination and control of social security, emergency preparedness and crisis management.
 
The outcome variables are 
(a) local variation in the spread of COVID-19 and the health consequences thereof (number of infections, admissions and death rates) and local variation in the spread of the vaccine (diffusion and managerial capacities), and 
(b) the social security solutions (income security, compensation schemes, social inequality, etc.). In addition, 
(c) variation in institutional conditions is mapped and analysed (cf. WPs 1–4). 

These variables, on which we will base our analysis, are a combination of case studies, existing registry data (including publicly available infection and vaccine data) and surveys administered to policy-makers and relevant staff at both levels in all of the Nordic countries. WP1 will also analyse legislation and regulations concerning two or three specific types of infection control measures in relation to institutional arrangements in each country. 

The common core survey data will be designed from the governance (WP3) and organizational (WP4) perspective to grasp the Polycentric Nordic local democracy structures, through the following approaches: