For many people unhappy with their country’s reaction to the pandemic, the blame is not limited to their government. According to a survey carried out in twelve countries on four continents, the responsibility extends to democracy itself.
It is known that the pandemic has had a high human and economic cost. In the US, for example, more people have died from Covid-19 that American soldiers in the two world wars. Many more have seen, and still see, their livelihoods in jeopardy. In his first address to a joint session of Congress, US President Joe Biden declared that political leaders must demonstrate that democracy “still works,” fulfilling their duty to protect people during the worst pandemic of the last century. .
The fear is that mismanagement of the crisis will weaken citizens’ support for democratic norms and institutions. Something that, in turn, could embolden authoritarian-populist politicians willing to dismantle the checks and balances of the democratic system.
Now, to what extent does the pandemic undermine popular support for democracy? According to some theories, the crisis should not have too much influence, especially in rich and well-established democracies, although other arguments point to the contrary. What does the data show? As part of an international team of academics from European and American universities we have carried out a poll comparative analysis in order to analyze society’s assessment of leaders and democracy in a pandemic.
Sample of 12 countries from four continents
In this study, which includes representative samples from twelve countries on four continents, 22,500 people were asked. In an experimental way, the survey offered the interviewees different information on the management of the pandemic in their country, comparing it with that of other countries or other historical moments. Thanks to this methodology, it is possible to study how information related to the coronavirus is used to assign blame or merits to political leaders and institutions.
The analysis reveals that people don’t just blame the government in office when things go wrong in the pandemic. Citizen dissatisfaction with the management of the double health and economic crisis also translates into dissatisfaction with the very functioning of democracy in their country.
On average, a one percentage point decrease in the level of satisfaction with the president (or prime minister) in light of information about the pandemic decreases satisfaction with democracy by approximately half a percentage point. In other words, there is a fairly strong link between the evaluations of the government of the day and the functioning of democracy in times of crisis (the details of the results of the study can be consulted in the working documents of the National Bureau of Economic Research).
Blame democracy
These conclusions contradict the thesis that, in democratic regimes, the fault lies with the elected government. US President Harry Truman became famous for having a sign on his desk that read The Buck Stops Here (“The responsibility is mine”). In this sense, and according to a commonly accepted political theory, a person dissatisfied with the management of the Government should simply vote for a different candidate or party in the following elections without questioning the rules of the game. However, our results indicate that, in the pandemic, many blame not only the president or prime minister, but also democracy itself.
This is not necessarily an irrational response. The pandemic has given ordinary people the rare opportunity to know how they are governed in a situation where their own health and way of life are directly threatened. The media coverage has been intense, in addition to the fact that the dual health and economic nature of the crisis puts the focus on a broader set of issues and political representatives than in normal times.
Thus, overnight the faces of ministers and other officials of the Ministries of Health – such as Anthony Fauci, in the US; Jens Spahn, in Germany, or Fernando Simon, in Spain – they have become regular on television along with those best known as presidents or prime ministers. In many countries, regional governments have also played a visible role in key political decision-making. All this makes possible a greater reflection on the part of the people on the political system as a whole.
Fortunately, people dissatisfied with the way democracies have managed the crisis do not say they are willing to give up democracy entirely. Alternative regimes such as technocracies or autocracies have not seen significant increases in levels of support among respondents. It makes sense since, in general, autocratic regimes did not outperform democracies in handling the pandemic.
However, the good news should not lead to complacency. Investigations like the one in the book How Democracies Die The political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt point out that democracies do not necessarily have to die from a coup. Rather, they are usually slowly dismantled by the elites, run over after run over. The danger is that dissatisfaction with the functioning of democracy in the pandemic will expand the electoral space of those elites who can and intend to undermine democratic norms and institutions from within.
A more promising scenario would be one in which the people who have become more critical of how democracy works in the pandemic become more involved in reforming democratic practice. This could lead to greater freedom and equality, two pillars of democratic regimes. Based on the data, the evidence for this is scant but, as the pandemic continues to evolve, it could be too early to rule it out.
Michael Becher, Michael Becher is Professor of Political Science at IE School of Global and Public Affairs, IE University; Nicolas Longuet Marx, PhD student, Columbia University, and Vincent Pons, Associate Professor at Harvard Business School, Harvard Business School
This article was originally published on The Conversation. read the original.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx