Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

Spring 5-3-2024

Keywords

COVID-19 Restrictions, Protective Policy Index, trust in government, European Union, Western Europe, Eastern Europe

Degree Name

Political Science (BA)

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Olga Shvetsova

Second Advisor

Ekrem Karakoc

Abstract

This research explores the relationship between COVID-19 policies and mortality rates and the level of trust in government in Europe. This study looks at the stringency of measures, as well as their effectiveness as shown through high or low mortality rates, to see if there is a relationship between those factors and increases or decreases in trust in 2020. The Eurobarometer is the dataset for trust in government, with a focus on the data from Summer 2020, the first Eurobarometer after COVID-19 began. The Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center was used for cumulative mortality, and Shvetsova et al., 2022 provided the data on Protective Policy Index, showing policy stringency. Trust increased in the average of the sample in the summer of 2020. Trust most increased in countries with stringent policies (PPI >0.6 on April 24, 2020), and with high mortality (> 10/100k deaths by May 1 2020). This showed that while stringent policies may be associated with a higher increase in trust, the effectiveness of those policies (which would lead to lower mortality rates) was not the main factor behind why those policies led to an increase in trust. Countries with stringent policies and either high or low mortality had a larger increase in trust than countries with non-stringent policies and high or low mortality.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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