Conference Agenda

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented unique challenges to democratic governance, especially in balancing public health imperatives with economic needs. This paper delves into the individual preferences regarding government action during the pandemic, specifically examining attitudes towards prioritising public health over economic activity and vice versa. Utilising data from Round 10 of the European Social Survey (ESS), which integrates a special module on COVID-19, this study investigates the hypothesis that unvaccinated individuals, especially in regions with prolonged economic deprivation, are more likely to favour economic prioritisation over public health measures. We expect that in situations where unvaccinated individuals face stricter restrictions and also experience economic deprivation in their home region (hence greater disappointment with the government's economic management), there is a stronger preference for economic prioritisation over public health concerns. Our analysis reveals that disparities in government measures for vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals significantly influence these preferences. The study finds a strong correlation between the stringency of restrictions on unvaccinated individuals and their inclination towards prioritising economic activity. This relationship intensifies in economically deprived regions, highlighting the intersection of health policy and socioeconomic status during the pandemic. Furthermore, our cross-national comparison demonstrates varied patterns across different countries, reflecting the complex interplay of cultural, political, and economic factors in shaping public opinion. This research contributes to understanding how pandemic-related policies are perceived and the broader implications for democratic governance during crises.

Vaccine hesitancy has emerged as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon that poses significant challenges to public health efforts to control infectious diseases (Bussink-Voorend et al. 2022) While vaccine hesitancy is often mischaracterized as being "anti-vaccine" or "anti-science," it is important to recognize that individuals who express vaccine hesitancy may have a range of concerns and informational needs that are not adequately addressed by governmental and public health messaging or interventions. Recent studies have identified various predictors of vaccine hesitancy including a lack of trust in government and pharmaceutical companies, religious beliefs, and political affiliation (Kenedy, 2019; Seddig et al., 2022) among others. While misinformation plays a pivotal role in the endorsement of conspiracy theories related to vaccines, there seems to be a broader tendency to conspiracy ideation (Bromme & Hendriks 2024) anchored to a generalized mistrust in institutions, scientific knowledge, and the society as a whole, irrespective of the vaccine context.

To delve deeper into this phenomenon, we will use data from the COVID-19 European Social Survey (ESS) module (Round 10) and the Cronos 2 wave 5 panel. Our focus is on exploring the association between trust in science and political and social trust, alongside investigating the drivers influencing compliance and conspirational thinking among the participating countries in the ESS.

People in Japan as in other countries had faced many (eight) waves of the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 to January 2023. 69,000 people died by February 2023. Various measures were taken against the COVID-19 ranging from small behavioral changes (washing hands more frequently and wearing face masks) to imposing restrictions (closing business and staying at home). Policies in Japan can be considered to be mild restrictions as there were no lockdowns, and they were based on individuals’ discretion. In this presentation, Japanese people’s views on governmental measures against the COVID-19 will be presented in comparison of those of people in EU nations based on JGSS and ESS data. Several months before JGSS and ESS signed the MOU in June 2021, we discussed a possibility of sharing data on the following four questions: (1) When fighting a pandemic, what do you think should be the government priority? Public health vs economic activity; (2) Monitoring/surveilling the public vs. Maintaining privacy; (3) Closing country borders is extremely important or extremely unimportant; (4) Restricting people’s movement is extremely important or extremely unimportant (11-point scale). JGSS included these questions in JGSS-2021 which was conducted in February 2021 (sample size: 1,722) and in JGSS-2022 (1,564) which was conducted in January 2022. This paper also examine how people evaluate government policies and the prevalence of COVID-19 infection fear in Japan.

Satisfaction with the covid response policy can be shown to have an impact on trust of national government and, via this, on support for European integration. Multiple-group structural equation models using the ESS10 data show cross-country variation in the impact on support for European integration with only EU member countries displaying this pathway of effects. The focus of this paper is on an exogenous variable to the model, which shapes to some degree the satisfaction with the covid response policy and also the support for European integration, namely the tendency towards conspirational thinking.

Conspiracy beliefs have caught researchers’ interest as they promise to explain opposition to covid response measures and vaccination hesitancy. A set of items on conspirational thinking was included in ESS10. Holding conspiracy beliefs explains some dissatisfaction with the covid response policy as well as some Euroscepticism directly in some countries. But when conspiracy beliefs are associated with dissatisfaction, how to call the opposite pole that is associated with satisfaction with the covid response policy? Is the trait of holding conspiracy beliefs unipolar – i.e., the opposite being not holding such beliefs – or bipolar – i.e., holding opposite beliefs.

The working hypothesis is that the opposite of holding conspiracy beliefs can be considered as ‘permissive consensus’. This concept was coined in the early research on attitudes towards European integration to describe the acceptance of an elite-driven project. This implies that the opposite pole of conspiracy beliefs is a trusting attitude towards elites that are visible and accountable. IRT models will be applied to test whether this conceptualization of the opposite of conspirational thinking can be confirmed.