Public trust, policing, and the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from an electoral authoritarian regime.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Blair RA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9122739 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Authoritarian incumbents routinely use democratic emulation as a strategy to extend their tenure in power. Yet, there is also evidence that multiparty competition makes electoral authoritarianism more vulnerable to failure. Proceeding from the assumption that the outcomes of authoritarian electoral openings are inherently uncertain, it is argued in this article that the institutionalisation of elections determines whether electoral authoritarianism promotes stability or vulnerability. By 'institutionalisation', it is meant the ability of authoritarian regimes to reduce uncertainty over outcomes as they regularly hold multiparty elections. Using discrete-time event-history models for competing risks, the effects of sequences of multiparty elections on patterns of regime survival and failure in 262 authoritarian regimes from 1946 to 2010 are assessed, conditioned on their degree of competitiveness. The findings suggest that the institutionalisation of electoral uncertainty enhances authoritarian regime survival. However, for competitive electoral authoritarian regimes this entails substantial risk. The first three elections substantially increase the probability of democratisation, with the danger subsequently diminishing. This suggests that convoking multiparty competition is a risky game with potentially high rewards for autocrats who manage to institutionalise elections. Yet, only a small number of authoritarian regimes survive as competitive beyond the first few elections, suggesting that truly competitive authoritarianism is hard to institutionalise. The study thus finds that the question of whether elections are dangerous or stabilising for authoritarianism is dependent on differences between the ability of competitive and hegemonic forms of electoral authoritarianism to reduce electoral uncertainty.
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Project description:ObjectivesThe unprecedented nature of COVID-19 pandemic lockdown order projected to contain the pandemic and the global use of the police to enforce the order has necessitated the investigation of public (non-compliant) behavior and police intervention (misconduct). Given that the phases of easing the lockdown and reopening of the economy were already underway in Nigeria in September 2020, four months post-lockdown, this period was deemed suitable to collect the data.Data descriptionThe data consists of 30 participants' (25 individuals and five police personnel) views regarding the reasons that exacerbated the violation and the 'alleged' unethical practices of police personnel while enforcing the lockdown. However, it benefits the broader scientific community in areas such as policing, disaster risk reduction, pandemic management and public administration. It is valuable in police reforms against unethical practices and gives clear policy directions to policymakers and authorities in managing future public health emergencies. Also, it is useful in understanding the public awareness about the pandemic and public (mis)trust and disposition towards the government authorities on the obedience to law and public health safety advisories to contain a pandemic.
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Project description:Using two large-scale surveys among households, we examine the drivers of public trust in banks, insurance companies, BigTechs, and other people in the United States and the Netherlands, and analyse whether the COVID-19 pandemic has affected public trust. Our results suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic did not have much effect on trust in financial institutions in the US and the Netherlands. However, trust in BigTechs and trust in other people declined in both countries, especially in the US. Our regression results show that the relationship between respondents' characteristics and (changes in) trust differs across the US and the Netherlands. However, for both countries we find evidence that individuals with poor health have lower levels of trust than healthy people, and that trust among poor-health respondents dropped more during the pandemic. Furthermore, trust in other people is positively related to trust in banks, insurance companies, and BigTechs.
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Project description:While scientific uncertainty always invites the risk of politicization and raises questions of how to communicate about science, this risk is magnified for COVID-19. The limited data and accelerated research timelines mean that some prominent models or findings inevitably will be overturned or retracted. In this research, we examine the attitudes of more than 6000 Americans across five different survey experiments to understand how the cue giver and cue given about scientific uncertainty regarding COVID-19 affect public trust in science and support for science-based policy. Criticism from Democratic political elites undermines trust more than criticism from Republicans. Emphasizing uncertainty in projections can erode public trust in some contexts. Downplaying uncertainty can raise support in the short term, but reversals in projections may temper these effects or even reduce scientific trust. Careful science communication is critical to maintaining public support for science-based policies as the scientific consensus shifts over time.
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Project description:This study brings to the fore, insights into three key factors that had been widely noted to play significant roles in driving effective pandemic policing. These are the preparedness of the police as first responders to a public health crisis, the level of public trust in the police as a legitimate power holder, and community engagement as a tool to drive public support and participation in fighting COVID-19. Using the Nigeria police as a case study, with the damning reports of abuse of power and other misconduct, this study examined how the police responded to COVID-19 mandates and community participation. Interviews with 40 police officers who enforced the COVID-19 lockdown, 16 senior police officers, and 18 community leaders within Lagos and Ogun states were conducted, and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that community engagement was not effectively deployed by the Nigerian police in the course of pandemic policing. This was due to a lack of police preparedness, over-reliance on the use of force for public control, public distrust in the police, and a lack of prior practice of community engagement by the police. Public distrust in the police was found to be central to peoples’ disobedience to COVID-19 rules which worsened police-community relations, culminating in protests against the police and its formations. These findings have important policy and practical implications if police legitimacy and post-COVID police-community relations are to improve.
| S-EPMC9748523 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivesThe emergence of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and subsequent pandemic has led to the most substantive large-scale, open, and public social discussion of epidemiology and science in recent history. In the United States (US), extensive debate has ensued as to the risk posed by the disease, whether the health system is prepared to manage a high volume of critical cases, whether any number of public health responses are necessary and appropriate, and the appropriate ways to prevent, manage, and treat the pandemic. I hypothesized that the interplay between scientists, policymakers, and the public in an open forum was associated with increased overall public trust in science and scientists, but that this was moderated by political orientation and/or religious commitment. In the context of a public health emergency, it is important to understand the degree to which science and scientists are trusted to produce information that can provide reassurance and also can explain the details of a highly complex event such as a viral pandemic while providing actionable recommendations.Study designThe study design was analytic cross-sectional.MethodsData were obtained on March 17-18, 2020, from a sample of 242 US-based Amazon Mechanical Turk users. Respondents completed a 49-question survey consisting of key sociodemographic variables, political affiliation, religious commitment, and two iterations of the Trust in Science and Scientist Inventory (one for March 2020, and one for December 2019 using retrospective recall). Changes in mean level of trust and interaction with political affiliation and/or religious commitment were assessed using mixed ANOVA via the general linear model.ResultsOn a scale from 1 (low trust) to 5 (high trust), the mean level of trust in science and scientists was static; 3.82 in December 2019 and 3.81 in March 2020. Conservative political orientation and high religious commitment were associated with significantly less overall trust in science; the interaction effect suggested that liberal trust in science decreased slightly from December 2019 to March 2020, whereas conservative trust increased slightly.ConclusionsCounter to my expectations, the overall level of trust in science remained static after the first several months of COVID-19 in the US, although there is some evidence that political orientation was associated with magnitude and directionality of change in trust. Continued examination of these trends is important for understanding public response to epidemiologic recommendations.
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Project description:The outbreak of COVID-19 has called for swift action by governments, often involving the adoption of restrictive measures such as lockdowns. In this context, leaders have faced a trade-off between imposing stringent measures to limit the contagion, and minimizing the short-run costs on their national economy, which could impact their electoral prospects. Leveraging on both the timing of elections and the constitutional term limits faced by leaders in presidential systems, we document how incumbents who can run for re-election implement less stringent restrictions when the election is closer in time. The effect is driven by measures more likely to have a negative economic impact. This shows how electoral concerns help explain the observed differences in the response to the onset of the COVID-19 epidemic across different countries.
| S-EPMC7980214 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In this paper, we study the relationship between trust and COVID-19 vaccination intentions. Vaccinating a large share of the population is essential for containing the COVID-19 pandemic. However, many individuals refuse to get vaccinated, which might be related to a lack of trust. Using unique survey data from Lithuania during the COVID-19 pandemic, we show that trust in government authorities, science, and pharmaceutical companies are important predictors of individual vaccination intentions. We do not find evidence that trust in strangers, the healthcare system, or the media predict intentions to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
| S-EPMC9683578 | biostudies-literature
Project description:This article investigates the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak on electoral participation. We study the French municipal elections that took place at the very beginning of the ongoing pandemic and held in over 9,000 municipalities on March 15, 2020. In addition to the simple note that turnout rates decreased to a historically low level, we establish a robust relationship between the depressed turnout rate and the disease. Using various estimation strategies and employing a large number of potential confounding factors, we find that the participation rate decreases with city proximity to COVID-19 clusters. Furthermore, the proximity has conditioned impacts according to the proportion of elderly -who are the most threatened- within the city. Cities with higher population density, where the risk of infection is higher, and cities where only one list ran at the election, which dramatically reduces competitiveness, experienced differentiated effects of distance.
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Project description:The absence of pharmaceutical interventions made it particularly difficult to mitigate the first outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The current study investigated how interpersonal trust and institutional trust influenced the control process. Trusts and COVID-19 data in 44 countries and 50 US states were analyzed; institutional trust was associated with case fatality rate, and interpersonal trust was associated with control speed. Two independent behavioral experiments showed that institutional trust manipulation increased participants' willingness to complete the COVID-19 test and that interpersonal trust manipulation increased conscious compliance with prevention norms and decreased unnecessary outdoor activities. Agent-based modeling further confirmed these behavioral mechanisms for two types of trust in the COVID-19 control process. New interventions are needed to help countries heighten interpersonal and institutional trust as they continue to battle COVID-19 and other collective threats.
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