Whereas most countries in the COVID‐19 pandemic imposed shutdowns and curfews to mitigate the contagion, Sweden uniquely pursued a more voluntarist approach. In this article, our interest is primarily on how and why Sweden's approach to the pandemic was so unique. There are two parts to this research question: (1) why did virtually all other nations follow a radical lockdown protocol despite limited evidence to its effectiveness and (2) why did Sweden not follow this same protocol despite strong political pressures? The answers to these questions lie within typical government technocracy versus Sweden's constitutional separation of government and technocracy. We review the history of the responses to the pandemic and show how the “tyranny of experts” was severe within the typical technocratic policy response, and attenuated in Sweden's. Thus, the recent pandemic offers empirical evidence and insights regarding the role of Hayekian knowledge problems in engendering a technocratic “tyranny of experts” and how such effects can be structurally mitigated.

中文翻译：

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权力和专业知识的分离：瑞典 COVID-19 应对措施中专家暴政的证据

尽管 COVID-19 大流行中的大多数国家都实施了关闭和宵禁以减轻传染，但瑞典独特地采取了更加自愿的方法。在本文中，我们的兴趣主要在于瑞典应对这一流行病的方法如何以及为何如此独特。这个研究问题有两个部分：（1）为什么几乎所有其他国家都遵循激进的封锁协议，尽管其有效性的证据有限；（2）尽管有强大的政治压力，为什么瑞典没有遵循同样的协议？这些问题的答案在于典型的政府技术专家与瑞典宪法中政府和技术专家的分离。我们回顾了应对大流行病的历史，并展示了“专家暴政”在典型的技术官僚政策反应中是如何严重的，而在瑞典的政策反应中却有所减弱。