Self-restraint behavior and partisanship during the COVID-19 pandemic: evidence from a list experiment in Japan

Masaki Hata

Social Science Japan Journal, 2024, vol. 27, issue 2, 221-229

Abstract: During the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns were considered a critical measure to control the spread of the virus. While Europe and the United States implemented strict lockdowns that restricted movement, Japan adopted a soft lockdown approach which relied on voluntary compliance without any legal enforcement. As a result, some citizens (especially young people) did not comply with the government’s request for voluntary restraint, and were frequently criticized in the media. To address the question of who did not comply with the government’s soft lockdown and why, this study analyzes a list experiment which measured participation in non-essential activities during Japan’s third COVID-19 wave, when economic stimulus policies and COVID-19 suppression measures were simultaneously implemented. The results showed that in particular young citizens who strongly disliked the ruling party did not comply with the government’s requests to stay at home. It is suggested that during a national crisis, the success of policies based on voluntary cooperation depends on citizens’ pre-crisis levels of trust in the government and the ruling parties.

Keywords: COVID-19; self-restraint behavior; voluntary lockdown; trust in government; list experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ssjj/jyae002 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:sscijp:v:27:y:2024:i:2:p:221-229.

Access Statistics for this article

Social Science Japan Journal is currently edited by Kenneth Mori McElwain

More articles in Social Science Japan Journal from University of Tokyo and Oxford University Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().