COVID-19 Response and Political Trust

• In Event: Political Trust

Abstract

Throughout the world, governments have struggled with responding to the COVID pandemic, seeing themselves forced to implement unpopular measures such as lockdowns or movement restrictions. First studies have demonstrated that political trust has been key for the compliance of the population with COVID measures. But how did the performance of governments during the pandemic affect trust levels? Evidence so far suggests that government performance can be an important predictor of political trust also in pandemic times. However, results in this vein have mainly been obtained using data from consolidated democracies and focusing on national-level institutions. This paper contributes to this stream of research by looking at the role local governments can play in strengthening trust in local, but also in national political institutions. For that, we investigate this link in the fragile, unstable political environment of Nepal, using an empirical strategy that combines data from an original phone survey conducted with 1400 respondents during the second wave of the pandemic with objective data on Covid-response measures by local governments.

Nepal is a particularly interesting case for two reasons. First, it has been severely and tragically affected by the pandemic. At the start, government measures – including a strict lockdown of several months in 2020 – seemed relatively effective. However, the situation changed drastically with exploding COVID-numbers and deaths, so that by August 2021 it has become one of the most affected developing countries worldwide. Second, Nepal is a post-conflict country with a relatively recent history of civil war that experiences recurring political crises and still struggles with establishing well-functioning institutions and political stability, which makes it a particularly interesting case to investigate political trust at different levels.

Exploiting subnational variation, the analysis reveals that assessments of COVID-related performance are significantly and robustly associated with higher political trust, both at the national and local level. This is particular interesting given the unstable political context and indicates that local governments can play an important role in strengthening political trust in a way that transcends that of the immediate institutions involved.

Authors

• Charlotte Fiedler, German Development Institute (DIE)

• Hugo Marcos-Marne

• Karina Mross, German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)