Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 117, Issue 41, Pages 25429-25433Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2009252117
Keywords
COVID-19; leader support; political support
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Funding
- Singapore Ministry of Education Tier 1 Grant [R-317-000-154-115]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [71872190, 71502179S]
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COVID-19 has emerged as one of the deadliest and most disruptive events in recent human history. Drawing from political science and psychological theories, we examine the effects of daily confirmed cases in a country on citizens? support for the political leader through the first 120 d of 2020. Using three unique datasets which comprise 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) and weekly approval ratings of governors across the 50 states in the United States (n = 912,048), 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. These analyses show that political leaders received a boost in approval in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, these findings suggest that the previously documented 'rally 'round the flag effect applies beyond just intergroup conflict.
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