Abstract
Populist parties and actors now govern various countries around
the world. Often elected by the public in times of crises and over
the perceived failure of ‘the elites’, the question stands as to how
populist governments actually perform once elected, especially
in times of crisis. Using the pandemic shock in the form of the
COVID-19 crises, our paper poses the question of how populist
governments handle the pandemic. We answer this question by
introducing a theoretical framework according to which populist
governments (1) enact less far-reaching policy measures to counter the pandemic and (2) lower the effort of citizens to counter the pandemic, so that populist governed countries are (3) hit worse by the pandemic. We test these propositions in a sample of 42 countries with weekly data from 2020. Employing econometric models, we find empirical support for our propositions and ultimately conclude that excess mortality in populist governed countries exceeds the excess mortality of non-populist countries by 8 percentage points (i.e., 98%). Our findings have important implications for the assessment of populist government performance in general, as well as counter-pandemic measures in particular, by providing evidence that opportunistic and inadequate policy responses, spreading misinformation and downplaying the pandemic are strongly related to increases in COVID-19 mortality.
the world. Often elected by the public in times of crises and over
the perceived failure of ‘the elites’, the question stands as to how
populist governments actually perform once elected, especially
in times of crisis. Using the pandemic shock in the form of the
COVID-19 crises, our paper poses the question of how populist
governments handle the pandemic. We answer this question by
introducing a theoretical framework according to which populist
governments (1) enact less far-reaching policy measures to counter the pandemic and (2) lower the effort of citizens to counter the pandemic, so that populist governed countries are (3) hit worse by the pandemic. We test these propositions in a sample of 42 countries with weekly data from 2020. Employing econometric models, we find empirical support for our propositions and ultimately conclude that excess mortality in populist governed countries exceeds the excess mortality of non-populist countries by 8 percentage points (i.e., 98%). Our findings have important implications for the assessment of populist government performance in general, as well as counter-pandemic measures in particular, by providing evidence that opportunistic and inadequate policy responses, spreading misinformation and downplaying the pandemic are strongly related to increases in COVID-19 mortality.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 389-428 |
| Number of pages | 40 |
| Journal | Journal of Political Institutions and Political Economy |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 17 Nov 2021 |
Funding
We are grateful to Vinicius G. Rodrigues Vieira and the participants of the 2021 ISA Annual Convention for excellent comments and suggestions. We also would like to thank the anonymous reviewer, whose comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify our contribution. We thank the Korea Foundation for financial support of the project, \u201CPandemics, Health Diplomacy, and Peace Building\u201D. This research was also partly supported by the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Grant number UD2020/08217/FMR, as well as by European Research Council Grant 724191 PI: Staffan I. Lindberg V-Dem Institute University of Gothenburg Sweden.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Korea Foundation | |
| Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs | UD2020/08217/FMR |
| European Research Council | 724191 |
| European Research Council |
Keywords
- COVID-19
- Populism
- government policy
- pandemic
- public health
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Economics and Econometrics
- Political Science and International Relations
