The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders
COVID-19 has emerged as one of the deadliest and most disruptive global pandemics in recent human history. Drawing from political science and psychological theory, we examine the effects of daily confirmed cases in a country on citizens’ support for the nation’s leader through first 120 days of 2020...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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National Academy of Sciences
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127805 |
| _version_ | 1826206043986722816 |
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| author | Yam, Kai Chi Jackson, Joshua Conrad Barnes, Christopher Montgomery Lau, Tsz Chun Qin, Xin Lee, Hin Yeung |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering Yam, Kai Chi Jackson, Joshua Conrad Barnes, Christopher Montgomery Lau, Tsz Chun Qin, Xin Lee, Hin Yeung |
| author_sort | Yam, Kai Chi |
| collection | MIT |
| description | COVID-19 has emerged as one of the deadliest and most disruptive global pandemics in recent human history. Drawing from political science and psychological theory, we examine the effects of daily confirmed cases in a country on citizens’ support for the nation’s leader through first 120 days of 2020. Using two unique datasets which comprises daily approval ratings of head of government (N = 1,411,200) across 11 world leaders (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States), we find a strong and significant positive association between new daily confirmed and total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country and support for the heads of government. Exploratory analyses reveal that this effect might be strongest for countries high on individualism. These analyses show that world leaders benefit from COVID-19, at least in the early months of the pandemic. Moreover, these findings suggest that the previously documented “rally ‘round the flag” effect applies beyond just intergroup conflict. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:23:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/127805 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:23:07Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | National Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1278052022-10-01T14:56:01Z The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders Yam, Kai Chi Jackson, Joshua Conrad Barnes, Christopher Montgomery Lau, Tsz Chun Qin, Xin Lee, Hin Yeung Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering COVID-19 has emerged as one of the deadliest and most disruptive global pandemics in recent human history. Drawing from political science and psychological theory, we examine the effects of daily confirmed cases in a country on citizens’ support for the nation’s leader through first 120 days of 2020. Using two unique datasets which comprises daily approval ratings of head of government (N = 1,411,200) across 11 world leaders (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States), we find a strong and significant positive association between new daily confirmed and total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country and support for the heads of government. Exploratory analyses reveal that this effect might be strongest for countries high on individualism. These analyses show that world leaders benefit from COVID-19, at least in the early months of the pandemic. Moreover, these findings suggest that the previously documented “rally ‘round the flag” effect applies beyond just intergroup conflict. 2020-10-05T16:14:40Z 2020-10-05T16:14:40Z 2020-09 2020-05 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127805 Yam, Kai Chi et al. "The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (September 2020): doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009252117 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009252117 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use. application/pdf National Academy of Sciences PNAS |
| spellingShingle | Yam, Kai Chi Jackson, Joshua Conrad Barnes, Christopher Montgomery Lau, Tsz Chun Qin, Xin Lee, Hin Yeung The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title | The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title_full | The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title_fullStr | The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title_full_unstemmed | The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title_short | The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| title_sort | rise of covid 19 cases is associated with support for world leaders |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/127805 |
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