In the United States, the percentage of people who believe democracy is a “bad” way to rule the country has more than doubled, rising from 10.5% in late 2019 to 25.8% in late 2021.
According to a “mega-dataset” of almost half a million people’s attitudes across 109 nations since 2020, support for populist groups and candidates, as well as sympathy with the populist sentiment, has decreased during the outbreak.
With the mismanagement of coronavirus by populist politicians, together with a need for stability and a decrease in “polarising” attitudes, the pandemic has shifted public opinion, say researchers at Cambridge University.
The authors of a new analysis from Cambridge’s Centre for the Future of Democracy (CFD) call it the first global overview of how the Covid-19 crisis has shaped political beliefs.
With increasing trust in government and specialists like scientists and civil officials, they claim the danger of pandemic caused a “technocratic” change in political authority globally. Nonetheless, trust in the democratic process remained shaky.
“The story of politics in recent years has been the emergence of anti-establishment politicians who thrive on the growing distrust of experts,” says Dr Roberto Foa, the report’s lead author.
“From Erdogan and Bolsonaro to the ‘strong men’ of Eastern Europe, the planet has experienced a wave of political populism. Covid-19 may have caused that wave to crest.”
“Electoral support for populist parties has collapsed around the world in a way we don’t see for more mainstream politicians. There is strong evidence that the pandemic has severely blunted the rise of populism,” adds Foa.
Many political leaders saw rating boosts during the first months of the pandemic, according to experts, a classic “rally around the flag” effect in hard times.
However, virtually as soon as the coronavirus hit, populist politicians’ approval ratings began to plummet around the world, and have continued to do so ever since.
Between the spring of 2020 and the fourth quarter of 2021, populist politicians’ approval ratings dropped by 10% on average, while non-populists’ approval ratings rebounded to pre-pandemic levels.
Electoral support for their parties has also plummeted, most notably in Europe, where the proportion of individuals expecting to vote for a populist party has declined by an average of 11 percentage points to 27%.
Early lockdowns saw voting intentions for incumbent parties rise across Europe. Despite this, all of the continent’s ruling populists – from Italy’s Five Star to Hungary’s Fidezs – have seen their support plummet.
Over the course of the epidemic, support for Europe’s opposition populist parties declined — by 5 percentage points on average to 11% – but support for “mainstream” opposition climbed.
The decline of populism is attributed to a number of causes, according to researchers. One is simply populist governments’ botched handling of the pandemic, from Bolsonaro’s mask veto to Trump’s “bleach injection” remark.
Survey results show that people don’t trust populist leaders to tell them about viruses as much as centrist leaders do.
In June 2020, approval of the government’s handling of the crisis was 11 percentage points lower on average in populist-led countries than in centrist-led countries. This disparity had grown to 16 points by the end of 2020.
In most nations, researchers discovered that political “tribalism” — fertile ground for populists – has dropped. During the crisis, the percentage of party supporters who expressed a “strong dislike” of individuals who voted for opposition candidates declined in most countries (although not the United States).
“The pandemic fostered a sense of shared purpose that may have reduced the political polarisation we’ve seen over the last decade,” adds CFD researcher and report co-author Dr Xavier Romero-Vidal. “This could help explain why populist leaders are struggling to mobilise support.”
Certain populist ideals are eroding their support. In practically every country surveyed, levels of agreement with phrases like “corrupt elites divide our nation” and “the will of the people” should be obeyed decreased.
Between 2019 and 2021, for example, agreement with four such assertions declined by 9 percentage points in Italy to 66%, 10 points in France to 61%, and 8 points in the United Kingdom to 64%.
Commitment to these principles has also faded. Even among supporters, fewer people in practically every country now “strongly agree” than they did in 2019. This trend is primarily among individuals over 55 in established democracies.
Furthermore, the areas with the sharpest declines in populist sentiments are some of the poorer “left behind” regions that have been a focus for populist rhetoric and support – from Eastern Poland to Southern Italy and Northern Hungary.
“This may be down to some rebalancing of wealth as people escaped cities overrun with the virus,” says Foa. “In addition, Covid-19 border closures stopped migration and globalised trade more effectively than any populist government.”
However, when the world was in the grip of the pandemic, several “illiberal” policies gained traction. Majorities in all major countries polled in 2020 agreed that handshakes should be prohibited, and a large portion of the public – including majorities in Japan and Germany – favored limiting internet talks about the virus.
According to academics, the result of populist decline has not been renewed faith in liberal democracy. Support for democracy has also eroded, possibly as a result of populists in power.
Citizens increasingly choose technocratic sources of authority, such as delegating decision-making to “non-political” specialists.
By the beginning of summer 2020, the percentage of Europeans who believe experts should be allowed to make decisions “according to what they think is best for the country” had risen 14 points to 62%, while the percentage of Americans who believe experts should be allowed to make decisions risen 8 points to 57%.
While trust in government has consistently increased since the pandemic, rising by 3.4 percentage points on average throughout the world’s democratic nations, faith in democracy as a political system has remained relatively stable.
“Satisfaction with democracy has recovered only slightly since the post-war nadir of 2019, and is still well below the long-term average,” according to Foa.
“Some of the biggest declines in democratic support during the pandemic were seen in Germany, Spain and Japan – nations with large elderly populations particularly vulnerable to the virus.”
In the United States, the percentage of people who believe democracy is a “bad” way to rule the country has more than doubled, rising from 10.5% in late 2019 to 25.8% in late 2021.
“The pandemic has brought good and bad news for liberal democracy. On the upside, we see a decline in populism and a restoration of trust in government. On the downside, some illiberal attitudes have are increasing, and satisfaction with democracy remains very low,” says Foa.
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