Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic
<p><strong>Objectives:</strong> Little is known about how health issues affect voting behaviour. The Covid-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to examine this interplay.</p> <p><strong>Design:</strong> We employ a survey experiment in which treatment gr...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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BMJ Publishing Group
2020
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| _version_ | 1797060148930281472 |
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| author | Acharya, A Gerring, J Reeves, A |
| author_facet | Acharya, A Gerring, J Reeves, A |
| author_sort | Acharya, A |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p><strong>Objectives:</strong> Little is known about how health issues affect voting behaviour. The Covid-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to examine this interplay.</p>
<p><strong>Design:</strong> We employ a survey experiment in which treatment groups are exposed to key facts about the pandemic, followed by questions intended to elicit attitudes toward the incumbent party and government responsibility for the pandemic.</p>
<p><strong>Setting:</strong> The survey was conducted amid the lockdown period of 15 April-6 June 2020 in three large democratic countries with the common governing language of English: India, United Kingdom and United States. Due to limitations on travel and recruitment, subjects were recruited through the M-Turk internet platform and the survey was administered entirely on-line. Respondents numbered 2,913.</p>
<p><strong>Results:</strong> Our expectation was that respondents in the treatment group would favor, or disfavor, the incumbent and assign blame to government for the pandemic, when compared to the control group. We observe no such results. Several reasons may be adduced for this null finding. It could be that public health is not viewed as a political issue but rather as a matter of personal conduct, group status, or socioeconomic standing. However, people do think health is an important policy area (>85% percent agree) and that government has some responsibility for health (>90% agree). It could also be that members of the public view public health policies through partisan lenses, which means that it is largely endogenous, and yet we find little evidence of polarization in our data. It could be that the global nature of the Covid-19 pandemic has inoculated politicians from blame and yet a majority of people do think the government is to blame for the spread of the pandemic (~50% agree).</p>
<p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> While we cannot precisely determine the mechanisms that might be at work, the null findings contained in this study suggest that politicians are unlikely to be punished or rewarded for their failures or successes in managing Covid-19 in the next election.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:13:23Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:2b57c329-a19c-47a0-8608-6fa03b51b67f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-06T20:13:23Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:2b57c329-a19c-47a0-8608-6fa03b51b67f2022-03-26T12:30:23ZIs health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemicJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:2b57c329-a19c-47a0-8608-6fa03b51b67fEnglishSymplectic ElementsBMJ Publishing Group2020Acharya, AGerring, JReeves, A<p><strong>Objectives:</strong> Little is known about how health issues affect voting behaviour. The Covid-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to examine this interplay.</p> <p><strong>Design:</strong> We employ a survey experiment in which treatment groups are exposed to key facts about the pandemic, followed by questions intended to elicit attitudes toward the incumbent party and government responsibility for the pandemic.</p> <p><strong>Setting:</strong> The survey was conducted amid the lockdown period of 15 April-6 June 2020 in three large democratic countries with the common governing language of English: India, United Kingdom and United States. Due to limitations on travel and recruitment, subjects were recruited through the M-Turk internet platform and the survey was administered entirely on-line. Respondents numbered 2,913.</p> <p><strong>Results:</strong> Our expectation was that respondents in the treatment group would favor, or disfavor, the incumbent and assign blame to government for the pandemic, when compared to the control group. We observe no such results. Several reasons may be adduced for this null finding. It could be that public health is not viewed as a political issue but rather as a matter of personal conduct, group status, or socioeconomic standing. However, people do think health is an important policy area (>85% percent agree) and that government has some responsibility for health (>90% agree). It could also be that members of the public view public health policies through partisan lenses, which means that it is largely endogenous, and yet we find little evidence of polarization in our data. It could be that the global nature of the Covid-19 pandemic has inoculated politicians from blame and yet a majority of people do think the government is to blame for the spread of the pandemic (~50% agree).</p> <p><strong>Conclusions:</strong> While we cannot precisely determine the mechanisms that might be at work, the null findings contained in this study suggest that politicians are unlikely to be punished or rewarded for their failures or successes in managing Covid-19 in the next election.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Acharya, A Gerring, J Reeves, A Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title | Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title_full | Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title_fullStr | Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title_short | Is health politically irrelevant? experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
| title_sort | is health politically irrelevant experimental evidence during a global pandemic |
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