Covid-19 skepticism and conspiracy belief and the support for (alternative models of) democracy

The year 2021 has seen an ideological radicalization of Covid protests in Germany. Additionally, violent clashes between protesters and police as well as attacks on journalists are repeatedly reported. Many of the Anti-Covid protesters portray the existing political system as a “Covid dictatorship” and conspiracy beliefs are abundant. Moreover, there are frequent reports of violent attacks on vaccination centers, as well as reports of politicians, scientists, journalists, and doctors being verbally threatened. These events point towards a potential threat of radicalized Covid-19 skeptics to democracy. Whereas a vast amount of studies has looked into the origins of Covid-19 conspiracy belief as well as its consequences for health behaviour and vaccine intentions, the links between Covid-19 conspiracy beliefs as well as Covid-19 skepticism and support for democracy remain a blank space. In general, the effect of conspiracy belief on support for democracy appears to be an underresearched topic (see Pantazi et al. 2021; Albertson & Guiler 2020 for exceptions). Existing studies thus far focussed on the effects of conspiracy beliefs on political participation (e.g., Jolley & Douglas 2014) as well as violent political actions (Vegetti & Littvay 2021; Lamberty & Leiser 2021). In this paper we examine the link between support for alternative models of democracy (direct democracy and technocracy) and Covid-19 skepticism (i.e. the belief that the coronavirus is not dangerous) as well as Covid-19 related conspiracy beliefs. The paper uses a representative sample of 1,100 individuals surveyed in the East German state of Thuringia in Summer 2021. We show that Covid-19 skepticism is linked to increased support for direct democracy as well as technocracy. There is (weaker) evidence for the belief in Covid-19 conspiracy theories that points towards the same direction. This contradicts claims that conspiracy belief is associated with decreased support for democracy, as well as that Covid-19 skeptics are per se anti-democratic. Instead, our findings suggest that Covid-19 skepticism and conspiracy beliefs are associated with a preference for direct (i.e. more participatory) as well as technocratic (i.e. more effective) models of democracy over representative democracy.