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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 authorita...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8219124/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34157050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253485 |
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author | Lupu, Noam Zechmeister, Elizabeth J. |
author_facet | Lupu, Noam Zechmeister, Elizabeth J. |
author_sort | Lupu, Noam |
collection | PubMed |
description | 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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8219124 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82191242021-07-07 The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes Lupu, Noam Zechmeister, Elizabeth J. PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2021-06-22 /pmc/articles/PMC8219124/ /pubmed/34157050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253485 Text en © 2021 Lupu, Zechmeister https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Lupu, Noam Zechmeister, Elizabeth J. The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title | The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title_full | The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title_fullStr | The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title_full_unstemmed | The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title_short | The early COVID-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
title_sort | early covid-19 pandemic and democratic attitudes |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8219124/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34157050 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253485 |
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