Pandemic threat and authoritarian attitudes in Europe: An empirical analysis of the exposure to COVID-19

Maximilian Filsinger and Markus Freitag
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Maximilian Filsinger: Institute of Political Science, 111829University of Bern, Switzerland
Markus Freitag: Institute of Political Science, 111829University of Bern, Switzerland

European Union Politics, 2022, vol. 23, issue 3, 417-436

Abstract: While analysis of the impact of threatening events has moved from bit player to center stage in political science in recent decades, the phenomenon of pandemic threat is widely neglected in terms of a systematic research agenda. Tying together insights from the behavioral immune system hypothesis and standard political science models of emotional processing, we evaluate whether exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic threat is related to authoritarian attitudes and which emotions do the work. Using 12 samples with over 12,000 respondents from six European countries at two time points (2020 and 2021), we argue that pandemic threats can generate disgust, anger, and fear. Our analyses indicate that exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic threat particularly activates fear, which in turn is linked to authoritarian attitudes.

Keywords: Affective intelligence theory, authoritarian attitudes; behavioral immune system; comparative politics; pandemic threat (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:23:y:2022:i:3:p:417-436

DOI: 10.1177/14651165221082517

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