An Extensive Form Approach to Deteriorating Democratic Principles During Crises

What impact does a crisis have on democratic institutions? While the COVID-19 pandemic uprooted and replaced common social behavioral norms with fear-based sentiment in several countries, I suggest this same phenomenon also diminished democratic institutions. I argue that the severity of the pandemic, coupled with ever-changing government information, disinformation, and protectionist policies, promoted increasingly authoritarian approaches to governance in democratic countries. As this is driven by fear and uncertainty, I present a two-player extensive form game assuming rational actors, as well as fear and uncertainty as a form of imperfect information. The two players are the government and the general public. My model suggests the COVID-19 pandemic yielded a shift in the general public’s opinion shift towards predominantly restrictionist and isolationist attitudes, while in-turn promoting predominantly nativist and anti-globalization policies among leadership due to this assumption. I thus demonstrate how impactful fear made manifest through a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic can deteriorate the principle of pluralism in modern democratic systems and discuss the potential consequences.