Change of government/​leader in some countries: if they did not handle pandemic well
Do you have a sense for how well correlated public opinion and government performance is? At least in the US, my impression is that Trump’s approval ratings got a slight bump but are now back to normal levels, and public opinion mostly tracks party allegiance rather than any government policy.
Indeed, I looked at Trump’s approval rating over time and it’s been about average for US presidents with little pandemic effect. Possibly the US is a bit of an outlier in this regard though, or it’s a bit early for an assessment.
Because the ultimate Covid death toll will be a stark, objective measure of performance relative to other countries, I suspect later in the year it will be harder for voters anywhere to maintain illusions about how well or badly their country has handled the pandemic. (That said, much is not really down to the leaders, as no-one can really be expected to have known how best to handle it, given the limited information early on and the variety of strategies that have been tried. I have little doubt though that Trump’s decision-making has been particularly poor.)
Thanks for this thorough list! Regarding:
Do you have a sense for how well correlated public opinion and government performance is? At least in the US, my impression is that Trump’s approval ratings got a slight bump but are now back to normal levels, and public opinion mostly tracks party allegiance rather than any government policy.
Indeed, I looked at Trump’s approval rating over time and it’s been about average for US presidents with little pandemic effect. Possibly the US is a bit of an outlier in this regard though, or it’s a bit early for an assessment.
Because the ultimate Covid death toll will be a stark, objective measure of performance relative to other countries, I suspect later in the year it will be harder for voters anywhere to maintain illusions about how well or badly their country has handled the pandemic. (That said, much is not really down to the leaders, as no-one can really be expected to have known how best to handle it, given the limited information early on and the variety of strategies that have been tried. I have little doubt though that Trump’s decision-making has been particularly poor.)