Who Closed the Border? Directionality and Political Trust in the COVID-19 Crisis

This paper asks whether it matters who closes the border. During COVID-19, Germany’s nine land borders saw uneven and often asymmetric controls: at times, Germany restricted entry into its territory, while at other times, neighboring states closed their borders to Germany. I conceptualize such closures as performances of sovereignty whose direction signals either protection and control (internal closures, imposed by one’s own government) or exclusion and loss of standing (external closures, imposed by others). I argue that these directional cues shape how citizens, specifically those in the border regions most directly impacted by the policy, attribute competence and blame towards their own government. Leveraging the geographical variation, I combine a three-wave panel of German residents (autumn 2020–summer 2021) with precise residential proximity to affected crossings, contrasting political trust in national institutions with trust in science to test attributional specificity. Preliminary results suggest that residents exposed only to external closures display lower political trust than those near borders also closed by the German government or unaffected areas, with gaps widening over time; effects on science trust are smaller and less consistent. The study advances a relational perspective on crisis governance, showing how nationally decided yet locally experienced policies shape citizens’ trust in political institutions.