Uncooperative society, uncooperative politics or both? Trust, polarization, populism and COVID‐19 deaths across European regions

Abstract

Why have some territories performed better than others in the fight against COVID‐19? This paper uses a novel dataset on excess mortality, trust and political polarization for 165 European regions to explore the role of social and political divisions in the remarkable regional differences in excess mortality during the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic. First, we investigate whether regions characterized by a low social and political trust witnessed a higher excess mortality. Second, we argue that it is not only levels, but also polarization in trust among citizens – in particular, between government supporters and non‐supporters – that matters for understanding why people in some regions have adopted more pro‐healthy behaviour. Third, we explore the partisan make‐up of regional parliaments and the relationship between political division – or what we refer to as ‘uncooperative politics’. We hypothesize that the ideological positioning – in particular those that lean more populist – and ideological polarization among political parties is also linked to higher mortality. Accounting for a host of potential confounders, we find robust support that regions with lower levels of both social and political trust are associated with higher excess mortality, along with citizen polarization in institutional trust in some models. On the ideological make‐up of regional parliaments, we find that, ceteris paribus, those that lean more ‘tan’ on the ‘GAL‐TAN’ spectrum yielded higher excess mortality. Moreover, although we find limited evidence of elite polarization driving excess deaths on the left‐right or GAL‐TAN spectrums, partisan differences on the attitudes towards the European Union demonstrated significantly higher deaths, which we argue proxies for (anti)populism. Overall, we find that both lower citizen‐level trust and populist elite‐level ideological characteristics of regional parliaments are associated with higher excess mortality in European regions during the first wave of the pandemic.

Institutions and the uneven geography of the first wave of the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Other recent papers, such asOksanen et al (2020) andCharron et al (2020), have focused on the role of institutions on the incidence of the COVID-19 pandemic Oksanen et al (2020). put the emphasis on country differences in measures taken to stop the spread of the virus Charron et al (2020). put the stress fundamentally on political polarization.…”

From Public Health Policy to Impact for COVID-19: A Multi-Country Case Study in Switzerland, Spain, Iran and Pakistan

“…Compared to the more proactive containment strategies (massive testing and contact tracing) taken by countries such as South Korea, in early stages of the pandemic, Spain’s approach was criticized in the scientific literature as being unnecessarily restrictive in controlling the spread of the virus [ 41 , 42 ]. Fear of economic slowdown and political polarization in parliament combined with social opposition to restrictive measures resulted in the loss of parliamentary support for the continued state of alarm [ 43 , 44 ]. On 21 June 2020, all pandemic response competencies were fully devolved to the autonomous communities and the quick reopening resulted in deficient implementation of tracking and tracing systems, likely hindering the efficiency of the pandemic response [ 43 – 45 ].…”

“…Fear of economic slowdown and political polarization in parliament combined with social opposition to restrictive measures resulted in the loss of parliamentary support for the continued state of alarm [ 43 , 44 ]. On 21 June 2020, all pandemic response competencies were fully devolved to the autonomous communities and the quick reopening resulted in deficient implementation of tracking and tracing systems, likely hindering the efficiency of the pandemic response [ 43 – 45 ].…”

Matices del entorno pandémico: Covidianidad, polarización y vulnerabilidad social

“…Si la polarización política de una sociedad está asociada con la polarización de las élites, y esta se reproduce en la competencia electoral interpartidista (Hetherington, 2001), es esperable que la alta polarización ideológica interpartidista aumente considerablemente el costo de enfrentar la pandemia: a) reduciendo la capacidad de negociación política del partido en el gobierno; b) los partidos de gobierno pueden dar prioridad a las demandas de sus bases leales por encima de las preocupaciones de salud pública; y c) la polarización es un terreno fértil para los liderazgos populistas adversos al saber experto (Charron et al, 2020).…”