In trust we trust: The impact of trust in government on excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic
| Author | Francesco Nicoli,Ellen Wayenberg,Bishoy Louis Zaki,Bram Verschuere |
| Published date | 01 April 2022 |
| Date | 01 April 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/09520767211058003 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Public Policy and Administration
2022, Vol. 37(2) 226–252
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/09520767211058003
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In trust we trust: The impact of
trust in government on excess
mortality during the
COVID-19 pandemic
Bishoy Louis Zaki
Department of Public Governance and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration,
University of Ghent, Belgium
Francesco Nicoli
Department of Public Governance and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration,
University of Ghent, Belgium Department of Economics, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Ellen Wayenberg
Department of Public Governance and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration,
University of Ghent, Belgium
Bram Verschuere
Department of Public Governance and Management, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration,
University of Ghent, Belgium
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward myriad challenges to public policy, central
of which is understanding the different contextual factors that can influence the effec-
tiveness of policy responses across different systems. In this article, we explore how trust
in government can influence the ability of COVID-19 policy responses to curb excess
mortality during the pandemic. Our findings indicate that stringent policy responses play a
central role in curbing excess mortality. They also indicate that such relationship is not
only influenced by systematic and structural factors, but also by citizens’trust in gov-
ernment. We leverage our findings to propose a set of recommendations for policy-
makers on how to enhance crisis policymaking and strengthen the designs of the widely
used underlying policy learning processes.
Corresponding author:
Francesco Nicoli, Department of Public Management and Governance, Faculty of Economics and Business
Administration, University of Ghent, Henleykaai 84, Gent 9000, Belgium.
Email: francesco.nicoli@ugent.be
Keywords
COVID-19, comparative public policy, policy learning, trust, crisis response
Introduction
How governments respond to contain the spread of COVID-19, and the consequences of
those responses, pose challenging questions for both the research and practice of public
policy and administration. As a global exogenous shock, the COVID-19 crisis provides
opportunities for learning by comparing a wide range of responses across different
contexts (e.g., Capano et al., 2020;Dunlop and Radaelli, 2020;Rose, 1991). The out-
comes of such learning hold significant theoretical and practical relevance, particularly
given the societal, health, and economic implications of COVID-19 policy responses. This
emphasizes the need for furthering the research agenda on COVID-19 crisis responses
while maintaining relevance, rigor, and an eye on implications for the practice of pol-
icymaking (Dunlop et al., 2020;Migone, 2020;Moon, 2020).
A central component of such research agenda is the intense debate over the stringency
of containment measures such as lockdowns, quarantine rules, suspension of educational
activities and public assembly. Public reactions to lockdowns and other policy measures
have varied across different countries, ranging from instances where decisive government
action enhanced approval ratings to others where similar actions were viewed as setbacks
to civil liberties or the economy (e.g., Bekker et al., 2020;Popelier, 2020). The latter
reaction became more salient as the outbreak gradually became less visible to the public.
While most governments initially focused on the immediate public health demands; one
and a half year into the pandemic, the social and economic effects ensuant to such
containment measures are undergoing increasing public scrutiny. Given the high multi-
dimensional price tag on containment measures, achieving low mortality as an outcome
becomes key. Yet policy responses have largely varied across countries either in strin-
gency or timing. Perceptions of the pandemic, politico-administrative traditions, and issue
framings have influenced public administrations and politicians’policy preferences. This
yielded a range of approaches to the debate on public health and the economy from
directive to communitarian to hollow and coping states (Van der Voet, 2021). In some
countries, such as Sweden and South-Korea, governments initially focused on main-
taining the economy afloat, which in turn directed efforts to protecting the most vulnerable
and avoiding large-scale lockdowns whenever possible (e.g., Lee et al., 2020;Pierre,
2020). Other countries such as China, France or Italy opted for stringent early-on
lockdowns (Capano et al., 2020), with some countries (particularly in Europe), shift-
ing from the softer to the harder approaches as they observed deficiencies in initial
mitigation (Jae Moon, 2020: 655). Here, the dynamism and variations in COVID-19
policy responses emphasized three main issues. First, the nature of COVID-19 as a
technically complex, highly ambiguous emerging problem meant that scientific consensus
on a single optimal course of action can be difficult to obtain (Van Dooren and
Noordegraaf, 2020). Second, COVID-19 policy responses such as non-pharmaceutical
interventions (NPIs) including updated hygienic standards, social distancing, and
Zaki et al. 227
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