Determinants of Political Trust during the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Putting Policy Performance into Evidence
| Author | Ana Maria Belchior,Conceição Pequito Teixeira |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211056193 |
| Published date | 01 February 2023 |
| Date | 01 February 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299211056193
Political Studies Review
2023, Vol. 21(1) 82 –98
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/14789299211056193
journals.sagepub.com/home/psrev
Determinants of Political Trust
during the Early Months of the
COVID-19 Pandemic: Putting
Policy Performance into
Evidence
Ana Maria Belchior1 and Conceição
Pequito Teixeira2
Abstract
Basing on the previous and early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article analysis the
main determinants of citizens’ trust in the prime minister over that period. Prior research on the
political effects of the pandemic has mostly focused on identifying a rally around the flag effect,
and little is known about other reasons behind the increase in trust after the outbreak of the
pandemic. Based on survey data from February to July 2020 for Spanish citizens, we argue that the
reasons for the increased trust in the prime minister following the pandemic outbreak are due
more to performance evaluations than to emotional-related factors regarding COVID-19 health
issues. We also argue that among performance evaluations, the assessment of policy performance
in fighting the COVID-19 crisis is of preeminent relevance in explaining trust in the prime minister
during the pandemic period. Findings widely support our argument. By comparing the effects of
conventional to emotional-related factors, we extend scholarship on political trust in the context
of an exogenous crisis.
Keywords
Political trust, COVID-19 pandemic, prime minister, policy performance, Spain
Accepted: 4 October 2021
Introduction
The first signs of the coronavirus pandemic were detected in December 2019 in Wuhan,
China, and were rapidly felt all over the world. Since then, its effects have been devas-
tating from the point of view of human losses as well as its social and economic impact.
Research on its effects have been burgeoning, especially studies on citizens’ political
1ISCTE–Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and CIES-Iscte, Lisbon, Portugal
2ISCSP–Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Política, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
Corresponding author:
Ana Maria Belchior, ISCTE–Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL) and CIES-Iscte, Av. Forças Armadas,
1949-026 Iscte Lisbon, Portugal.
Email: ana.belchior@iscte-iul.pt
1056193PSW0010.1177/14789299211056193Political Studies ReviewBelchior et al.
research-article2021
Article
Belchior et al. 83
trust. In a pandemic context, researching political trust is of particular interest as trust
is a necessary component of political leadership. Without it, leaders will have difficulty
in succeeding (Hetherington, 1998), especially when it comes to looming challenges
such as exogeneous shocks (Keele, 2013). This is surely the case in the ongoing
COVID-19 pandemic. As broadly demonstrated regarding compliance with govern-
ment demands and regulations (Levi and Stoker, 2000: 491–493), in the current pan-
demic, high levels of trust have been shown to be a necessary condition for the
implementation of restrictive policies and for public support and compliance with them
(Bavel et al., 2020: 466; Devine et al., 2020). As public cooperation is a key element for
the government’s successful management of the crisis, trust in the political leadership
is instrumental to reach this end.
Literature on the effects of external shocks, whether natural disasters, terrorist attacks
or a pandemic, has demonstrated that citizens’ political trust tends to increase substan-
tially immediately after the emergence of the shock compared to the previous period. The
most common reason given for this trend is the rally around-the-flag effect (Dinesen and
Jæger, 2013; Hetherington and Nelson, 2003). In short, this effect consists of a substantial
rise in citizens’ trust in the political leading figures as a consequence of an external threat,
due to emotional reasons (Mueller, 1970; for a literature review, see Baekgaard et al.,
2020: 5). For instance, shocks such as the 11 September 2001 terrorist attack in the United
States and the 11 March 2004 Madrid terrorist attack led to increased levels of political
trust (Dinesen and Jæger, 2013; Hetherington and Nelson, 2003).
Based on evidence of increased levels of trust in political institutions, research has
been highlighting that the COVID-19 pandemic actually led to national rally around the
flag effects in many countries (Baekgaard et al., 2020; Esaiasson et al., 2020; Schraff,
2020; Sibley et al., 2020). This research also indicates that citizens rally around govern-
ing institutions and leaders for non-cognitive reasons, independently of the policy choices
for dealing with the pandemic (Esaiasson et al., 2020; Schraff, 2020). However, this pre-
vious research mainly analysed the effect of lockdown on citizens’ trust (Baekgaard et al.,
2020; Bol et al., 2021; Schraff, 2020; Sibley et al., 2020), disregarding a broader assess-
ment of the phenomenon’s causality. That is, whether the substantial increase in political
trust at the initial phase of the pandemic was essentially due to emotional-related factors,
such as concern or fear of the coronavirus spreading, thus converging with a rally around
the flag effect, or whether conventional cognitive factors such as assessment of govern-
ment performance are still dominant. So far, little is known about the relative contribution
of these factors to explain the increased levels of trust during the early pandemic period.
Supported by the Spanish case, we intend to contribute to fill this gap by assessing the
determinants of political trust in the prime minister in the early months of the pandemic,
comparing cognitive with emotional-related factors.
Prior research on the consequences of exogeneous shocks on political trust tended
to analyse institutions rather than leaders. Notwithstanding the misunderstandings and
misuses underlying the study of the rally around the flag effect (Chowanietz, 2011), its
initial conceptualization suggests that trust increases in key political leaders, seen as
national symbols, rather than in political institutions (Mueller, 1970). In particular,
leadership in the executive branch, as is the case of the prime minister, is especially
suitable to study this effect (i.e. to assess emotional-related factors), due to his or her
core role in the political system (Helms, 2005: 3–4). Prime ministers are also directly
accountable for the executive’s performance. They are the most exposed leaders to
public scrutiny, usually being the first targets in citizens’ evaluation of government
To continue reading
Request your trial