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Uncooperative Society, Uncooperative Politics or Both? Trust, Polarisation, Populism and COVID-19 Deaths across European regions

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Charron
  • Victor Lapuente
  • Andres Rodriguez-Pose

Abstract

Why have some territories performed better than others in the fight against COVID-19? This paper uses a novel dataset on excess mortality, trust and political polarization for 165 European regions to explore the role of social and political divisions in the remarkable regional differences in excess mortality during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. First, we investigate whether regions characterized by a low social and political trust witnessed a higher excess mortality. Second, we argue that it is not only levels, but also polarisation in trust among citizens – in particular, between government supporters and non-supporters – what matters for understanding why people in some regions have adopted more pro-healthy behaviour. Third, we explore the partisan make-up of regional parliaments and the relationship between political division – or what we refer to as ‘uncooperative politics’. We hypothesize that the ideological positioning – in particular those that lean more populist – and ideological polarization among political parties is also linked to higher mortality. Accounting for a host of potential confounders, we find robust support that regions with lower levels of both social and political trust are associated with higher excess mortality, along with citizen polarization in institutional trust in some models. On the ideological make-up regional parliaments, we find that, ceteris paribus, those that lean more ‘tan’ on the ‘gal-tan’ spectrum yielded higher excess mortality. Moreover, although we find limited evidence of elite polarization driving excess deaths on the left-right or gal-tan spectrums, partisan differences on the attitudes towards the EU demonstrated significantly higher deaths, which we argue proxies for (anti)populism. Overall, we find that both lower citizen-level trust and populist elite-level ideological characteristics of regional parliaments are associated with higher excess mortality in European regions during the first wave of the pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Charron & Victor Lapuente & Andres Rodriguez-Pose, 2022. "Uncooperative Society, Uncooperative Politics or Both? Trust, Polarisation, Populism and COVID-19 Deaths across European regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 2204, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jan 2022.
    • Handle: RePEc:egu:wpaper:2204
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    Cited by:

    1. Mellacher, Patrick, 2023. "The impact of corona populism: Empirical evidence from Austria and theory," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 113-140.
    2. Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & You, Zhuoying & Teirlinck, Peter, 2025. "The political extremes and innovation: How support for extreme parties shapes overall and green scientific research and technological innovation in Europe," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 54(9).
    3. Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen & Klaus H. Goetz, 2022. "COVID‐19 and European Multi‐Level Democracy," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(S1), pages 137-149, September.

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    JEL classification:

    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • R58 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Regional Development Planning and Policy

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