Efficiency vs democracy in a pandemic: How being affected by Covid19 influences trust in government and support for anti-liberal policies.

The Covid19 pandemic has accentuated the potential pressures on democratic beliefs and practices caused by principles such as ‘responsibility’ and ‘efficiency’. While the pandemic itself is a global event that affects most individuals in broadly similar ways, individuals perceive the pandemic, its consequences and policy implications as well as the democratic structures dealing with the challenges in different ways. This article investigates the relationship between individuals’ perception of the Covid19 pandemic and their attitudes towards democracy. In particular, it asks: (a) whether individuals’ sense of being affected by the pandemic increases or decreases their trust in the government, and (b) whether this sense of being affected influences individuals’ support for Covid19 policies that are anti-liberal or anti-democratic. To answer these questions, the paper builds on a tailor-made representative survey, which was conducted in Austria in September 2020 and contained a conjoint experiment to test the acceptability of different policies. The analyses show that those who feel affected by Covid19 in the economic situation trust the government more and that there is an interactive effect between feeling affected by the pandemic and trust in government on the support for anti-liberal policies. These findings indicate that the relationship between democratic principles and “what needs to be done” is complicated by the pandemic, but the pandemic does not cause citizens to sacrifice democracy for responsible or efficient solutions.