Trust in Government Actions During the COVID-19 Crisis

Marc Oliver Rieger () and Mei Wang
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Marc Oliver Rieger: University of Trier, Research Cluster “Cultures in Transitions”
Mei Wang: WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management

Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, 2022, vol. 159, issue 3, No 7, 967-989

Abstract: Abstract The worldwide COVID-19 pandemic puts countries and their governments in an unprecedented situation. Strong countermeasures have been implemented in most places, but how much do people trust their governments in handling this crisis? Using data from a worldwide survey, conducted between March 20th and April 22nd, 2020, with more than 100,000 participants, we study people’s perceptions of government reactions in 57 countries. We find that media freedom reduces government trust directly as well as indirectly via a more negative assessment of government reactions as either insufficient or too strict. Higher level of education is associated with higher government trust and lower tendency to judge government reactions as too extreme. We also find different predictors of perceived insufficient reactions vs. too-extreme reactions. In particular, number of COVID-19 deaths significantly predicts perceived insufficient reactions but is not related to perceived too-extreme reactions. Further survey evidence suggests that conspiracy theory believers tend to perceive government countermeasures as too strict.

Keywords: SARS-Cov2 pandemics; Government trust; Perception of government interventions; Stringency; Lock-down; Media freedom; Conspiracy theories (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H12 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11205-021-02772-x

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