Public Opnion under the Covid19 Pandemic

The Covid19 crisis has confronted individuals with never seen before challenge in terms of health, economy, social life. Because this crisis tapped into all social dimensions, it affected most peoples’ lives. Undoubtedly, the Covid19 pandemic has affected public opinion in general and political behaviors and attitudes in particular. The investigation of citizen’s adaption, response to this crisis, as well as their (possibly enduring) consequences is interesting for several reasons. Because of resource limitation, narrow methodologies, or national focuses, we contend that very few studies genuinely enable to assess the public opinion transformations from the outbreak of the crisis in March 2020 onward. This paper introduces the Citizens’ Attitudes Under Covid19 Project (CAUCP), which surveyed public opinion throughout the Covid19 pandemic from March to December 2020. The CAUCP provides public opinion panel data from 11 OECD democracies over the year 2020 in order to examine the longitudinal and cross-country evolution (or stability) of citizens’ preferences and behavior. This dataset addresses multiple dimensions to evaluate the consequences of the pandemic: electoral behavior, political attitudes and ideology, behavioral and attitudinal reactions to Covdi19 related policies, as well as the social and economic consequences of the crisis. Particularly, this paper shows the cross-country and longitudinal transformation of three key dimensions : democratic accountability, policy compliance, and attitudinal dynamics.