Publications
Publications
- 2021
COVID-19, Government Performance, and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries
By: Michael Becher, Nicholas Longuet Marx, Vincent Pons, Sylvain Brouard, Martial Foucault, Vincenzo Galasso, Eric Kerrouche, Sandra León Alfonso and Daniel Stegmueller
Abstract
Beyond its immediate impact on public health and the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic has put democracy under stress. While a common view is that people should blame the government rather than the political system for bad crisis management, an opposing view is that dissatisfaction with government performance may cause deeper dissatisfaction with democracy even in consolidated democratic regimes. We use a pre-registered survey and experiment covering 12 countries and 22,500 respondents to examine the impact of the pandemic on public attitudes about incumbent governments, the functioning of democracy and support for different types of regimes. To estimate causal effects, we leverage experimental treatments using an instrumental variable design. We find that dissatisfaction with the government, which is equally driven by economic and health considerations, decreases satisfaction with how democracy works. However, it does not translate into an embrace of non-democratic regime types.
Keywords
COVID-19 Pandemic; Government Performance; Democracy; Health Pandemics; Government and Politics; Crisis Management; Public Opinion
Citation
Becher, Michael, Nicholas Longuet Marx, Vincent Pons, Sylvain Brouard, Martial Foucault, Vincenzo Galasso, Eric Kerrouche, Sandra León Alfonso, and Daniel Stegmueller. "COVID-19, Government Performance, and Democracy: Survey Experimental Evidence from 12 Countries." NBER Working Paper Series, No. 29514, November 2021.