The effects of COVID-19 infection on opposition to COVID-19 policies: evidence from the U.S. congress

Dickson, Zachary and Yildirim, Tevfik Murat (2024) The effects of COVID-19 infection on opposition to COVID-19 policies: evidence from the U.S. congress. Political Communication. ISSN 1058-4609

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Abstract

Elites’ skepticism of scientific consensus presents a formidable challenge in addressing critical issues like climate change and global pandemics. While extensive research has explored the capacity of events related to these challenges to act as “exogenous shocks,” motivating the general public to reassess their risk perceptions, our understanding of how elites similarly respond to such shocks remains limited. In this article, we investigate whether COVID-19 infections influenced US lawmakers’ support for COVID-19 containment measures, focusing on expressed opposition to COVID-19 policies on social media and in press releases throughout the first two years of the pandemic. Employing a staggered difference-in-difference design and matrix completion methods, our analysis reveals that COVID-19 infections caused a reduction of approximately 30% in legislators’ expressions of opposition to COVID-19 policies on social media. These findings underscore that elites are indeed responsive to policy shocks–even in highly polarized contexts–when they are personally affected by an issue.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/upcp20
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors
Divisions:	Methodology
Subjects:	J Political Science
Date Deposited:	03 Jun 2024 13:36
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2024 13:48
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/123727

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