Why have some countries been more successful in their COVID-19 vaccine rollouts than others? Despite efforts by governments to vaccinate their adult populations against COVID-19, vaccination rates remain irregularly low in some countries. We suggest that a crucial piece of this puzzle lies in resistance against government directives from the public due to civil liberty protections. Countries with greater protections for civil liberties can be expected to have lower vaccinations administered than countries with fewer protections, as the public enjoys a sense of freedom regarding their private lives. In such countries, de jure constraints on government policies are complemented by the fear of public backlash, even in crises; consequently, beyond structural limitations, governments with high levels of civil liberty protections face an additional hurdle in managing the COVID-19 crisis. Evidence for this hypothesis is presented for 153 countries by combining civil liberty scores with newly available data on COVID-19 vaccinations.
The emergence of the COVID-19 outbreak can be considered a potential driver of changes not only in academic disciplines but also, as most observers underline, in the teaching mission of higher education. This raises the main question of this article, that is, exactly whether and how an external shock such as COVID-19 can impact the comprehensive profile of academic disciplines. By focusing on European political science, the article assesses the differences among scholars in this community in terms of potential long-term reactions. The study, based on the outcomes of an original survey conducted among 1400 European professional political scientists (EPSs) at the end of 2020, aims at detecting the "predisposition to adaptation" of the community, by examining the attitudes revealed by EPSs during the early phase of pandemic. In this regard, we focus on the explanations of different aspects of 'professional adaptation', discussing three dimensions that seem to be present in our sample, although with very different weights: passive, proactive and innovative adaptation.
Basing on the previous and early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article analysis the main determinants of citizens' trust in the prime minister over that period. Prior research on the political effects of the pandemic has mostly focused on identifying a rally around the flag effect, and little is known about other reasons behind the increase in trust after the outbreak of the pandemic. Based on survey data from February to July 2020 for Spanish citizens, we argue that the reasons for the increased trust in the prime minister following the pandemic outbreak are due more to performance evaluations than to emotional-related factors regarding COVID-19 health issues. We also argue that among performance evaluations, the assessment of policy performance in fighting the COVID-19 crisis is of preeminent relevance in explaining trust in the prime minister during the pandemic period. Findings widely support our argument. By comparing the effects of conventional to emotional-related factors, we extend scholarship on political trust in the context of an exogenous crisis.
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