Citizens’ Trust in Government Response to the Pandemic. How to Understand Variation in Trust Between The European and the Member State Level

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic is dealt with in multiple stages and by multiple actors. The effectiveness of the response depends partially on the level of citizens’ trust in policymakers at different government levels throughout the pandemic. This paper investigates how and why citizens’ trust varies between the European and the national level. The paper uses data collected in Belgium throughout seven survey waves between April and December 2020. These data show notable variation in trust between government levels and over time. At the start of the pandemic the national level enjoyed much higher trust than the European level. In the following months trust in all government levels, both at the national and the European level decreased substantially. Since August, however, trust in the EU level to respond to the crisis has increased. In this paper we discuss these variations and examine to what extent mechanisms and factors such as congruence between government levels, the rally-round-the-flag effect, political events external to the pandemic, the content of the restriction and economic relief measures, the epidemiological evolution, as well as media salience of levels of governments help to understand cross-level and cross-time variations in citizens’ trust in governments’ response to the pandemic.