The effect of COVID‐19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy?
Open accessAbstract
Major crises can act as critical junctures or reinforce the political status quo, depending on how citizens view the performance of central institutions. We use an interrupted time series to study the political effect of the enforcement of a strict confinement policy in response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. Specifically, we take advantage of a unique representative web‐based survey that was fielded in March and April 2020 in Western Europe to compare the political support of those who took the survey right before and right after the start of the lockdown in their country. We find that lockdowns have increased vote intentions for the party of the Prime Minister/President, trust in government and satisfaction with democracy. Furthermore, we find that, while rallying individuals around current leaders and institutions, they have had no effect on traditional left–right attitudes.
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People in Western Europe who had experienced a lockdown reported 4% stronger support for their Prime Minister's party than those who had not yet experienced one.
“Bol et al. (2021) found that people in Western Europe who had experienced a lockdown reported 4% stronger support for their Prime Minister ' s party than those who had not yet experienced one.”
From Precaution and proportionality in pandemic politics: democracy, state capacity, and COVID-19-related school closures around the world (2022) · cites this paper as Bol et al. 2021
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- Authors
- Bol, D., Giani, M., Blais, A., & Loewen, P. J.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- Université de Montréal (CA)
- University of Toronto (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Giani, Marco
- Venue
- European Journal of Political Research
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2021-05
- Volume
- 60
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 497-505
- ISSN
- 0304-4130 (ISSN-L)
- 1475-6765
- OpenAlex
- W3024557722
- Cited by
- 701
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 34 · 2025: 88 · 2024: 96 · 2023: 107 · 2022: 169 · 2021: 157 · 2020: 50
- FWCI
- 416.99
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Political Research (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- King's College London
- University of Toronto
- Université de Montréal
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Political Theory and Democracy
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Public Administration and Political Analysis
- Keywords
- COVID-19 lockdown, political support, voting intention, public trust in government, satisfaction with democracy, critical junctures, political status quo, left-right attitudes, Western Europe
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