Leadership, Efficiency and Rule of Law in Peacetime Crises (LERF)

LERF is a research collaboration on Swedish peacetime crisis preparedness with a focus on constitutional, administrative and administrative policy aspects.

Ability to respond to crisis situations in peacetime

In 2020, crisis preparedness in Swedish public administrations, both state and municipal, has once again come into focus due to the corona pandemic. The actions of the government and responsible authorities during the pandemic have raised questions about the Swedish administrative organization's ability to meet peacetime crises.

The legal and organisational conditions for crisis management are crucial for preparedness and the ability to protect society at large, but also the lives and property of individuals. Crucial values must be weighed against each other: legality and the rule of law, capacity for action and efficiency, democracy and survival – almost existential issues for any society.

The problems surrounding the public administration's emergency preparedness are not new. In recent decades, uncertainties have come to light in various types of crises, such as the forest fires in 2018 and 2014, the terrorist attack in Stockholm in 2017, the tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia in 2004, the Estonia disaster in 1994 and the Palme murder in 1986. The events have all been followed by investigations into crisis and disaster preparedness in Sweden, but no overall grasp of crisis legislation and crisis organization has really ever been taken.

Sweden has constitutional rules that can be updated for a situation of war threats or war, but nothing equivalent for peacetime crisis situations. The division of responsibilities is unclear, the regulatory framework is a patchwork and the actual crisis preparedness has proved to be particularly inadequate in many places – despite the fact that the issues have thus been raised several times in recent decades.