The logics of COVID‐19 travel restrictions between European countries

OBJECTIVES: The article analyzes the existence of bilateral travel restrictions between European countries during the second wave of the Sars‐CoV‐2 pandemic. The paper tests three sets of theoretically derived predictions, which follow epidemiological, economic, and political logics. METHOD: We analyze a sample of directed bilateral travel restrictions between 27 European countries: 27.26 = 702 country dyads over a period of 6 months during the second wave of the pandemic. RESULTS: We find robust and relevant results for the difference in incidence rates, for income from tourism, for trust in government and public administration and for political inclusiveness. CONCLUSION: Our analyses demonstrates that economic and political logics exert a strong influence on containment measures and thus stress the relevance of forming a large societal and political coalition against the pandemic.