IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v700y2022i1p55-72.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Partisan Pandemic: How COVID-19 Was Primed for Polarization

Author

Listed:
  • Austin Hegland
  • Annie Li Zhang
  • Brianna Zichettella
  • Josh Pasek

Abstract

Americans who affiliate with both major political parties rapidly formed diverging attitudes about the COVID-19 pandemic. Matters of scientific concern have elicited partisan reactions in the past, but partisan divergence of opinion on those issues occurred over decades rather than months. We review evidence on factors that led to polarization of previous scientific issues in an effort to explain why reactions diverged so quickly this time around. We then use publicly available survey data to reveal that partisan reactions to the pandemic were closely associated with trust in public health institutions, that the association between partisanship and trust increased over time, and that the conflation of trust and partisanship appears to largely explain polarized reactions to COVID-19. We also investigate the hypothesis that conservative media use might explain polarization but find that the hypothesis is not supported by our data.

Suggested Citation

  • Austin Hegland & Annie Li Zhang & Brianna Zichettella & Josh Pasek, 2022. "A Partisan Pandemic: How COVID-19 Was Primed for Polarization," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 55-72, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:700:y:2022:i:1:p:55-72
    DOI: 10.1177/00027162221083686
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00027162221083686
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/00027162221083686?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. Robert Brulle & Jason Carmichael & J. Jenkins, 2012. "Shifting public opinion on climate change: an empirical assessment of factors influencing concern over climate change in the U.S., 2002–2010," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 114(2), pages 169-188, September.
    2. Allcott, Hunt & Boxell, Levi & Conway, Jacob & Gentzkow, Matthew & Thaler, Michael & Yang, David, 2020. "Polarization and public health: Partisan differences in social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    3. Lawrence C. Hamilton, 2016. "Public Awareness of the Scientific Consensus on Climate," SAGE Open, , vol. 6(4), pages 21582440166, November.
    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. Stankov, Petar, 2024. "Will voters polarize over pandemic restrictions? Theory and evidence from COVID-19," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    2. Stephan Lewandowsky & Konstantinos Armaos & Hendrik Bruns & Philipp Schmid & Dawn Liu Holford & Ulrike Hahn & Ahmed Al-Rawi & Sunita Sah & John Cook, 2022. "When Science Becomes Embroiled in Conflict: Recognizing the Public’s Need for Debate while Combating Conspiracies and Misinformation," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 700(1), pages 26-40, March.

    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. Roberta Weiner & Sarah P. Church & Junyu Lu & Laura A. Esman & Jackie M. Getson & Michelle Fleckenstein & Brennan Radulski & Pranay Ranjan & Emily Usher & Linda S. Prokopy & Linda Pfeiffer, 2021. "Climate change coverage in the United States media during the 2017 hurricane season: implications for climate change communication," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 164(3), pages 1-19, February.
    2. Shelley Boulianne & Mireille Lalancette & David Ilkiw, 2020. "“School Strike 4 Climate”: Social Media and the International Youth Protest on Climate Change," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 8(2), pages 208-218.
    3. Lou, Jiehong & Shen, Xingchi & Niemeier, Deb, 2020. "Are stay-at-home orders more difficult to follow for low-income groups?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    4. Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln & Dirk Krueger & André Kurmann & Etienne Lalé & Alexander Ludwig & Irina Popova, 2023. "The Fiscal and Welfare Effects of Policy Responses to the Covid-19 School Closures," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(1), pages 35-98, March.
    5. Alexander Dietrich & Edward S. Knotek & Keith Kuester & Gernot J. Müller & Kristian Ove R. Myrseth & Raphael Schoenle & Michael Weber, 2020. "Consumers and COVID-19: A Real-Time Survey," Economic Commentary, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, vol. 2020(08), pages 1-6, April.
    6. Anindya Ghose & Beibei Li & Meghanath Macha & Chenshuo Sun & Natasha Ying Zhang Foutz, 2020. "Trading Privacy for the Greater Social Good: How Did America React During COVID-19?," Papers 2006.05859, arXiv.org.
    7. Henrik Serup Christensen & Lauri Rapeli, 2021. "Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 54(1), pages 63-94, March.
    8. Mehmet Ronael & Tüzin Baycan, 2022. "Place-based factors affecting COVID-19 incidences in Turkey," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 1053-1086, October.
    9. Lucia Freira & Marco Sartorio & Cynthia Boruchowicz & Florencia Lopez Boo & Joaquin Navajas, 2021. "The interplay between partisanship, forecasted COVID-19 deaths, and support for preventive policies," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    10. Jeremiah Bohr, 2017. "Is it hot in here or is it just me? Temperature anomalies and political polarization over global warming in the American public," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 142(1), pages 271-285, May.
    11. Leo H. Kahane, 2021. "Politicizing the Mask: Political, Economic and Demographic Factors Affecting Mask Wearing Behavior in the USA," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 163-183, April.
    12. Bradley J. Larsen & Timothy J. Ryan & Steven Greene & Marc J. Hetherington & Rahsaan Maxwell & Steven Tadelis, 2022. "Using Donald Trump's COVID-19 Vaccine Endorsement to Give Public Health a Shot in the Arm: A Large-Scale Ad Experiment," Papers 2203.02625, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.
    13. Mehdi Shadmehr & Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, 2020. "Coordination and Social Distancing: Inertia in the Aggregate Response to COVID-19," Working Papers 2020-53, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    14. Loiacono, Luisa & Puglisi, Riccardo & Rizzo, Leonzio & Secomandi, Riccardo, 2022. "Pandemic knowledge and regulation effectiveness: Evidence from COVID-19," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 768-783.
    15. Monica Martinez-Bravo & Carlos Sanz, 2022. "The Management of the Pandemic and its Effects on Trust and Accountability," Working Papers wp2022_2207, CEMFI.
    16. Borau, Sylvie & Couprie, Hélène & Hopfensitz, Astrid, 2022. "The prosociality of married people: Evidence from a large multinational sample," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    17. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna Helen & Cerutti, Nicola & Danilov, Anastasia & Friedrichsen, Jana & Liu, Yiming & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face masks increase compliance with physical distancing recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 139-158.
    18. Carozzi, Felipe & Provenzano, Sandro & Roth, Sefi, 2020. "Urban Density and COVID-19," IZA Discussion Papers 13440, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    20. Thomas G. Safford & Emily H. Whitmore & Lawrence C. Hamilton, 2021. "Scientists, presidents, and pandemics—comparing the science–politics nexus during the Zika virus and COVID‐19 outbreaks," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 102(6), pages 2482-2498, November.

    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:sae:anname:v:700:y:2022:i:1:p:55-72. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.