The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes

How does a public health crisis like a global pandemic affect political opinions in fragile democratic contexts? Research in political science suggests several possible public reactions to crisis, from retrospective anti-incumbency to rally ‘round the flag effects to democratic erosion and authoritarianism. Which of these obtains depends on the nature of the crisis. We examine whether and how the onset of the global pandemic shifted public opinion toward the president, elections, and democracy in Haiti. We embedded two experiments in a phone survey administered to a nationally representative sample of Haitians in April-June 2020. We find that the early pandemic boosted presidential approval and intentions to vote for the incumbent president, consistent with a rally effect. These results show that a rally effect occurs even in the most unlikely of places–an unstable context in which the incumbent president is struggling to maintain order and support. At the same time, we find scant evidence that the onset of the pandemic eroded democratic attitudes, even in a context in which democracy rests on uncertain grounds.

COVID-19 and the Anatomy of the Rally Effect in Taiwan

Research has shown that major international events can produce a “rally ’round the flag” effect that boosts citizens’ support for an American president. This study examines such an effect in Taiwan, when the country was confronted by the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that citizens who previously disapproved of the president did become more likely to gather around their leader. The public’s support was contingent on the president’s ability to handle the crisis. This is one of the few studies on this effect conducted outside the US, and its findings represent a significant step toward broadening the scope of analysis.

To Blame or to Support? Large-scale Insurgent Attacks on Civilians and Public Trust in State Institutions

While there is a substantial body of literature on the consequences of terror attacks on public attitudes toward state institutions in Western democracies, little is known about the impact that such events have in the context of armed conflict. We address this gap by exploring the attitudinal effects of a 2012 Taliban attack on civilians in Kabul City, Afghanistan. We test two competing hypotheses: the “rally-effect” hypothesis according to which individuals increase their trust in incumbent institutions in the aftermath of violent attacks and the “accountability” hypothesis according to which individuals punish state institutions for their inability to provide security by withdrawing trust. Leveraging a quasi-experiment that compares individuals interviewed before the attack to individuals interviewed thereafter, we find that the attack—in line with the rally-effect hypothesis—increased trust in several state institutions among residents of Kabul City.

Who rallies around the flag? Evidence from panel data during the Covid-19 pandemic

Recent studies on political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic diagnosed a rally around the flag effect, leading to exceptionally high levels of trust in politics. While this finding has been established over various country-contexts, our understanding of the precise dynamics behind the rally effect remains limited. In this paper, we argue that health and economic risks, as well as partisanship condition the rally effect. Using individual-level panel data from the Netherlands, covering the time before and during the first Covid-19 wave, we show that the rally effect is particularly pronounced among older individuals, while it is absent among the young. Furthermore, we find a catch-up effect among the more distrusting part of the population, such as populist supporters and low-income earners, who largely drive the rally effect. This leads to a convergence of trust across different ideational and economic subpopulations, providing for a silver lining during otherwise turbulent times.

Rallying round the flag of the Star of David during the first wave of Covid-19: Increased popular support for Netanyahu in the time of crisis

The new coronavirus epidemic was perceived as a national crisis, and Israel mobilized all its security agencies to formulate countermeasures. Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to have successfully capitalized on this national crisis to boost support for himself in the short term. Prime Minister However, as discussed below, even if the growing death toll from the outbreak was reversed, there were other countries whose successes did not translate into increased support for the government, one of which was Japan.This study analyzes the surge in support for the prime minister during the first wave of the coronavirus epidemic in Israel within the framework of the rally effect. Israel was chosen as a case study for two reasons. First, the country was repeatedly polled during the first wave of infection. Second, a special policy that met the requirements for natural experimentation—a strict compartmentalized blockade limited to certain areas—had been in place for a while. These two conditions mean that a study of Israel during the first wave of the epidemic will allow us to make discoveries about the conditions under which a society supports its political leaders in the face of a national crisis.

Political trust during the Covid-19 pandemic: Rally around the flag or lockdown effects?

How can we explain the rise in diffuse political support during the Covid-19 pandemic? Recent research has argued that the lockdown measures generated political support. In contrast, I argue that the intensity of the pandemic rallied people around political institutions. Collective angst in the face of exponentially rising Covid-19 cases depresses the usual cognitive evaluations of institutions, and leads citizens to rally around existing intuitions as a lifebuoy. Using a representative Dutch household survey conducted over March 2020, I compare the lockdown effect to the dynamic of the pandemic. I find that the lockdown effect is driven by pre-existing time trends. Accounting for nonlinearities in time makes the lockdown effect disappear. In contrast, more flexible modelling techniques reveal a robust effect of Covid-19 infections on political trust. Moreover, I find that standard determinants of political trust – such as economic evaluations and social trust – lose explanatory power as the pandemic spreads. This speaks to an emotionally driven rally effect that pushes cognitive evaluations to the background.