IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v102y2021i5p2170-2183.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voters’ view of leaders during the Covid‐19 crisis: Quantitative analysis of keyword descriptions provides strength and direction of evaluations

Author

Listed:
  • Annika Fredén
  • Sverker Sikström

Abstract

Objectives Previous research suggests that governments usually gain support during crises such as the Covid‐19. However, these findings are based on rating scales that only allow us to measure the strength of this support. This article proposes a new measure of how voters evaluate Prime Ministers (PM) by asking for descriptive keywords that are analyzed by natural language processing. Methods By collecting a representative sample of citizens’ own key words describing their PM in 15 countries in Europe during the outbreak of Covid‐19, and analyzing these by latent semantic analysis and a multiple OLS regression, we could quantify the strength and direction of voters’ view. Results The strength analysis supported previous studies that describing the PM with positive words was strongly associated with vote intention. Furthermore, a change in the direction of the attitudes from “good” to “honest” was found. A new finding was that the pandemic was associated with an increase in polarization. Conclusions The keyword evaluation analysis provides opportunities of evaluating both strength and direction of voters’ view of their PM, where we show new results related to increased polarization and shift in the direction of attitudes.

Suggested Citation

  • Annika Fredén & Sverker Sikström, 2021. "Voters’ view of leaders during the Covid‐19 crisis: Quantitative analysis of keyword descriptions provides strength and direction of evaluations," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2170-2183, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:5:p:2170-2183
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.13036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.13036
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.13036?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mueller, John E., 1970. "Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson1," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(1), pages 18-34, March.
    2. Michael M. Bechtel & Jens Hainmueller, 2011. "How Lasting Is Voter Gratitude? An Analysis of the Short‐ and Long‐Term Electoral Returns to Beneficial Policy," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(4), pages 852-868, October.
    3. Adcock, Robert & Collier, David, 2001. "Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for Qualitative and Quantitative Research," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 95(3), pages 529-546, September.
    4. Michael Becher & Daniel Stegmueller & Sylvain Brouard & Eric Kerrouche, 2021. "Ideology and compliance with health guidelines during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A comparative perspective," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2106-2123, September.
    5. A. Colin Cameron & Douglas L. Miller, 2015. "A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 317-372.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lorena Barberia & Thomas Plümper & Guy D. Whitten, 2021. "The political science of Covid‐19: An introduction," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(5), pages 2045-2054, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Herrera, Helios & Konradt, Maximilian & Ordoñez, Guillermo & Trebesch, Christoph, 2020. "Corona politics: The cost of mismanaging pandemics," Kiel Working Papers 2165, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Neugart, Michael & Rode, Johannes, 2021. "Voting after a major flood: Is there a link between democratic experience and retrospective voting?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    3. Matsusaka, John G., 2017. "When Do Legislators Follow Constituent Opinion? Evidence from Matched Roll Call and Referendum Votes," Working Papers 264, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    4. Montone, Maurizio, 2022. "Does the U.S. president affect the stock market?," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    5. Edward Gu & Tianguang Meng & Hongying Wang & Alexander Zhang, 2023. "E-Government Use, Perceived Transparency, Public Knowledge of Government Performance, and Satisfaction with Government: An Analysis of Mediating, Moderating, and Framing Mechanisms Based on the COVID-," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 79-124, September.
    6. Lehmann, M. Christian & Matarazzo, Hellen, 2019. "Voters’ response to in-kind transfers: Quasi-experimental evidence from prescription drug cost-sharing in Brazil," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    7. Miao Wang & Hong Zhuang, 2022. "Effect of official development assistance on adolescent fertility rate: within-country evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 566-590.
    8. Jongmoo Jay Choi & Hoje Jo & Jimi Kim & Moo Sung Kim, 2018. "Business Groups and Corporate Social Responsibility," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 153(4), pages 931-954, December.
    9. Clément de Chaisemartin & Jaime Ramirez-Cuellar, 2024. "At What Level Should One Cluster Standard Errors in Paired and Small-Strata Experiments?," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 193-212, January.
    10. Francesca Carta & Lucia Rizzica, 2015. "Female employment and pre-kindergarten: on the uninteded effects of an Italian reform," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1030, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    11. Rotunno, Lorenzo, 2016. "Political stability and trade agreements: Evidence for ‘endgame FTAs’," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 133-148.
    12. Yuheng Lin & Dooruj Rambaccussing & Yu Zhu, 2024. "The impact of international students in the UK on the cultural goods trade," French Stata Users' Group Meetings 2024 29, Stata Users Group.
    13. Friedrich, Sarah & Pauly, Markus, 2018. "MATS: Inference for potentially singular and heteroscedastic MANOVA," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 166-179.
    14. Nora Gordon & Sarah Reber, 2018. "The effects of school desegregation on mixed-race births," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 31(2), pages 561-596, April.
    15. Borisova, Ekaterina & Gründler, Klaus & Hackenberger, Armin & Harter, Anina & Potrafke, Niklas & Schoors, Koen, 2023. "Crisis experience and the deep roots of COVID-19 vaccination preferences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 160(C).
    16. Disha Gupta, 2023. "Free power, irrigation, and groundwater depletion: Impact of farm electricity policy of Punjab, India," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 54(4), pages 515-541, July.
    17. Berthélemy Michel & Bonev Petyo & Dussaux Damien & Söderberg Magnus, 2019. "Methods for strengthening a weak instrument in the case of a persistent treatment," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 23(1), pages 1-30, February.
    18. Hollingsworth, Bruce & Ohinata, Asako & Picchio, Matteo & Walker, Ian, 2017. "Labour supply and informal care supply: The impacts of financial support for long-term elderly care," GLO Discussion Paper Series 118, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Stefano Gagliarducci & M. Daniele Paserman & Eleonora Patacchini, 2019. "Hurricanes, Climate Change Policies and Electoral Accountability," EIEF Working Papers Series 1907, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised May 2019.
    20. Guido Friebel & Matthias Heinz & Miriam Krueger & Nikolay Zubanov, 2017. "Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2168-2203, August.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:102:y:2021:i:5:p:2170-2183. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.