Solidary Attitudes and Actions in the Covid-19 crisis as a Trade-off to Freedom and Economic well-being (SAFE-19)

The governments' mitigation measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented in our post-war history. Citizens are expected to act in solidarity in order to control the spread of the virus and keep public health systems functional. They are called to cope with confinement, limitations of their freedom and economic activity. SAFE-19 provides a social sciences perspective on the concept of solidarity which has become a central claim for the fight against COVID-19. We divide the pandemic into three phases a) mitigation phase b) stabilisation phase and c) the new equilibrium. SAFE-19 strives to shed light on two major questions. What are the sources and scope of solidarity when society as a whole is faced with nearly impossible trade-offs? What are the conditions that enable a political community to act in solidarity and support solidary measures? Focusing on Germany between January and December 2020, we utilise a mixed methods approach: policy coding, survey data, discourse analysis of speeches, and twitter corpora including billions of tweets in order to offer a precise picture of solidarity in Germany in the context of COVID-19 and the trade-off between self-interest and common good orientation. SAFE-19 will demonstrate the ups and downs of solidarity in the intersection between politicians and citizens, and will offer insights to policy makers and other societal stakeholders on the fragile nature of solidarity in settings with extreme trade-offs between freedom and economic well-being on the one hand and saving human lives on the other.