Affiliation:
1. Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary
2. University of Vienna, Department of Economic Sociology
3. University of Vienna, Austria; ELTE University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Budapest
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments took measures to restrict political liberties, claiming that these restrictions were necessary to contain the spread of the virus. In this study, we scrutinize differences in citizens’ willingness to accept three types of political restrictions: restricting the media, banning protests, and introducing extensive state surveillance. We focus on two European countries: Austria and Hungary. While we find that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions, we also find that citizens differ in their willingness to support the three types of restrictions depending on whether the given measure affects them directly. We also find differences between Austria and Hungary concerning the way political trust and political values affect the acceptance of restrictions, which may be rooted in the larger polarization of Hungarian society. Furthermore, we observe that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions.
Funder
Stiftung Aktion Österreich-Ungarn
National Research, Development and Innovation Fund
Subject
Social Sciences (miscellaneous),Sociology and Political Science