(Im)mobilising citizens: Governing individual transport under COVID-19 and climate change in Sweden

One striking effect from policy responses by governments to address the COVID-19 pandemic was the repression of mobility, resulting in altered volumes and patterns of passenger transport on a global scale. Building on governance and governmentality theories we provide a comparative analysis of the management of COVID-19 and climate change by the Swedish state in relation to individual mobility and transport. We find that the governance approach in the two cases differ significantly, with a unified state response to COVID-19 being based on a perception of acute crisis combined with solidarity appeals to citizens. In contrast, climate change is marked by a distributed network governance, a conceptualisation of future crisis, and individuals being invoked primarily as economic agents. We discuss whether a stronger leadership by the state combined with appeals to civic solidarity may open new policy avenues for sustainable mobility.