After a Rally Effect: Relative Performance and Executive Approval Rate during Pandemic from the US, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan

How do government responses to COVID19 affect political attitude? One strand of literature suggests that political elites will enjoy surging popularity under pandemic because citizens tend to rally around the flag during the national crisis. Another perspective points that citizens’ reactions are not emotional but rational, so that they are likely to reward/punish their governments based on the job performance in handling with the public health crisis. In a similar vein, recent studies argue that such performance-based reaction is not retrospective but prospective, meaning that citizens tend to support strong and competent parties/leaders during crisis. In this paper, we argue that citizens arrive at an evaluation of the executive’s job performance by making comparisons with other countries. The idea of ‘relative performance’ is more relevant under pandemic, as the crisis is dramatic, sharp, and more importantly, widespread around globe. Using the original survey data from the US, Korea, Japan and Taiwan, we will examine how ‘relative’ performance to COVID19 shapes public opinion toward their executive offices.