The rise of COVID-19 cases is associated with support for world leaders

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.