During the last few decades in the handling of ongoing crises and preparing for future crises, governments and other public authorities increasingly emphasize the important role religious organizations can play in crises and disaster management. Considering this development, it is appropriate to ask whether the expectations by policymakers are mirrored by the religious organizations themselves? This article aims to answers this question by studying both the organizations' desired role in time of national crises and disasters and the actual role taken by local congregations in Sweden during the Covid-19 pandemic. It also aims to study whether this differs in relation to organizational differences and religious affiliation. The study clearly shows that 8 out of 10 congregations believe they have an important role to play in the event of a disaster or crisis. However, despite the high level of willingness, the role congregations take may not always mirror the governments expectations. In terms of differences between congregations, although cross-religious differences are noted, the size of the organization is the critical factor. The article concludes by discussing the disparity between policymakers' expectations and the willingness of organizations as well as the complexity of policymakers assuming that non-profit organizations will help unequivocally.

Focusing on national election campaigns in Sweden, this study examines how candidates’ political networks may influence who becomes member of Parliament in a flexible list system. Flexible list systems enable candidates placed on a non-eligible seat during the nomination process within the party organization, to still get elected via the voters’ optional preferential votes.

The data used is derived from a unique survey including a total sample of candidates elected to the Swedish Parliament 1998–2014 via preferential votes after being placed on a non-eligible seat during the nomination process. The data also includes acquaintances to these candidates defined as their political networks. The method used to track down the network members, was to ask the candidates for acquaintances who helped them during the nomination process and the election campaign. The motivation, resources and recruiting networks amongst these respondents are compared to those of candidates, and their political networks, who, despite being placed on an eligible seat during the nomination process ended up losing a seat in Parliament as a consequence of the flexible list system.

The analysis shows how dissatisfaction with the nomination process creates a motivation to use the preferential voting system in order to overrule the decisions made by the party. The result also indicates that the elected candidates and their political networks are more active within voluntary associations than their opponents. Furthermore, important differences in temporal resources are shown. Elected candidates can participate in the election campaign full-time and are able to take leave of absence from their ordinary jobs, while the opposite applies for the political networks. The political networks supporting elected candidates do not work full-time within the party to the same extent as networks supporting non-elected candidates. A suggestion for future research is to examine the importance of voluntary associations in relation to the use of preferential votes in flexible list systems.