How do Covid-19 Emergency Policies Relate to Political Trust? A Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

The paper investigates the influence of the measures implemented by national governments to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic on the citizens' trust in government, within European countries. Data collected from the Eurofound's Living, Working and Covid-19 survey and data from the Oxford Covid-19 Government response tracker database has been analysed through the employment of a multivariate OLS regression model. Overall, the analysis shows a negative relation between the emergency policies implemented by governments and political trust when considered at aggregated level. However, when considered at a disaggregated level, different kinds of emergency policies yield diverse relations with trust in government. The analysis points out how the policies concerning school and workplace closure, restrictions on gatherings and the economic measures concerning income support and debt contract relief has a negative relation with trust in government, while cancelling public events and restrictions on internal movement displays a positive relation.