The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders
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2009252117.full.pdf
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Author(s)
Yam, Kai Chi
Jackson, Joshua Conrad
Barnes, Christopher Montgomery
Lau, Tsz Chun
Qin, Xin
Lee, Hin Yeung
Date Issued
September 2020
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Citation
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
Version
Final published version
Abstract
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.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
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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.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2009252117
