title: Introduction
abstract: Since early 2020, the covid -19 pandemic has unfolded as a global crisis that poses significant challenges to governments and societies. 1 Governments have reacted quite variably, with policies ranging from strict lockdowns over a longer period of time to flexible approaches with restriction of freedoms at very low thresholds of intrusion into citizens’ rights. 2 While the pandemic does not affect everyone equally, and some countries are more advanced in containing the virus than others, the sen
journal: German Politics & Society