Thread by @ElonBachman

1\ This is a thread about how the structure of Sweden's political institutions allowed it to have the best COVID-19 policy in the world

I think it will be of interest to @garettjones, who managed to be wrong about the facts in Sweden, despite getting the principles right

https://twitter.com/GarettJones/status/1329403815641145346

2\ Garett's scholarship (summarized in "10% Less Democracy") persuasively argues that outcomes of all sorts are improved when governments are a little less responsive to the political process, and a little more responsive to insulated technocrats

3\ Garett's prior is that Sweden had bad COVID-19 outcomes. He's wrong about this (for reasons that would require another thread to explain), but the assumption seems to have made him see Sweden as a nail in need of his "less democracy" hammer

But this is precisely backwards!

4\ What sets Sweden apart from most other countries is the fact that its health policy is almost entirely out of the reach of elected officials

A forthcoming paper by @PerBylund and @mdpackard explains:

5\ While elected officials the world over discovered that they could enjoy wartime ratings boosts by imposing lockdowns, Sweden's politicians were mostly powerless to affect health policy:

6\ Garett tries to claim that Sweden "cut ties" with its experts before COVID-19. But compare Sweden's credentialed Anders Tegnell to the typical western public health apparatchik. Calling them troglodytes would be an insult to troglodytes

7\7 In any case, the point remains: countries locked down because their executives had the power to announce lockdowns

Sweden's politicians didn't have that power

So @GarettJones remains right about technocracy outperforming democracy. He just got his facts backwards in Sweden.