Erosion of Democratic Norms in an Era of Polarization, Misinformation, and COVID

• In Event: Polarization, Pandemic, and Trust in Political Information (Virtual Session)

Abstract

The global response to COVID-19 has included a range of unprecedented restrictions of liberty in the interests of collective public health. In Canada, curfews, severe restrictions on interregional travel, and vaccine passports have been employed. While these measures have been supported by a significant majority of Canadians in the interest of public health, a small but vocal minority has been critical of these actions. Their discourse has focused on themes of individual liberty alongside significant medical misinformation. These groups and individuals rose to prominence during the recent 2021 Canadian federal election, where the incumbent Prime Minister was targeted by (sometimes violent) protests throughout the campaign. In this heated context, we evaluate the extent to which policies responding to the threat of COVID-19 and associated misinformation have prompted an erosion of democratic norms.

We draw upon two preregistered survey experiments conducted during the election. The first experiment uses a dosage design where respondents are asked their agreement with 0, 1, 2, or 3 statements highlighting the tension between draconian COVID-19 action and democratic freedoms. We hypothesize that respondents, when invited to reflect more on the tension (through a higher number of survey questions), will assign less importance to living in a democracy, especially if they have low prior democratic knowledge. In addition, we expect that respondents with both lower prior democratic knowledge and higher agreement that COVID-19 measures are undemocratic will be more likely to be concerned over the state of Canadian democracy.

A second experiment examines support for a basic democratic right: freedom of peaceful assembly. Respondents were exposed to a prompt describing a hypothetical protest, in which we manipulated the objective of the protestors and whether the protestors were driven by misinformation. We anticipate that high polarization of an issue may lead to individuals loosening their commitment to democracy for the sake of political expediency. We hypothesize that disagreement with the position of the protestors will reduce support not only for the protestors, but also for media covering the protests, and even for allowing such protests to occur without government restriction. In the context of overwhelming scientific evidence for the necessity of action to combat climate change and the effectiveness of vaccines to combat COVID-19, we also anticipate a similar reduced commitment to the democratic right to protest when they are motivated by misinformation.

Taken together, we hypothesize a worrying attenuation of both basic support for democracy and specific democratic rights in the context of COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has been met with unparalleled government action that has included severe restrictions on individual freedoms. Meanwhile, the actions of a minority of Canadians are perceived as undermining the collective health response. Under these conditions, our experiments evaluate how commitment to higher principles of democracy can be weakened, particularly when polarized disagreement and misinformation are involved. We highlight a tension in democracies between responding to threats of the magnitude of COVID-19 and preserving democratic norms and overall support for democracy.

Authors

• Aengus Bridgman, McGill University

• Dietlind Stolle, McGill

• Mathieu Lavigne, McGill University