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COVID-19, Security Threats and Public Opinions

  • Vincenzo Bove EMAIL logo und Riccardo Di Leo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 10. August 2020
Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy
Aus der Zeitschrift Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy Band 26 Heft 3

Abstract

Throughout the coronavirus outbreak, politicians and commentators have often adopted a war-like rhetoric, invoking a language more often associated to terrorist violence, rather than epidemics. Although COVID-19 represents primarily a public health emergency, not inflicted by human agency, there are similarities in the type and scope of regulations governments have introduced to tackle the virus and to respond to terrorist attacks. In this article, we first ask what we can learn from the extant studies on the attitudinal and emotional consequences of terrorism, relating it to recent research on public opinions in the wake of COVID-19, in order to better understand and predict how the pandemic will influence public sentiments. We then analyze how attitudes can shift when a critical event not only threatens the population of a country as a whole, but directly affects its political leader. Leveraging recently released survey data, we show how the announcement of Angela Merkel’s quarantine significantly dampened the trust in and the credibility of her government, although this effect was short-lived.

Keywords: COVID-19; threats; terrorism; public opinion
Corresponding author: Vincenzo Bove, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK; and Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venezia, Italy, E-mail:

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Received: 2020-06-26
Accepted: 2020-07-10
Published Online: 2020-08-10

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Editorial
  2. Introduction to the special issue ‘Reflections on the post COVID-19 World’
  3. Research Articles
  4. Bioeconomic Peace Research and Policy
  5. COVID-19 and Collective Action
  6. Capitalism and COVID-19: Crisis at the Crossroads
  7. COVID-19, Security Threats and Public Opinions
  8. Pandemic Police States
  9. Guidelines for Revitalizing International Organizations for the Post-Covid-19 Era
  10. Peacekeeping after Covid-19
  11. COVID-19 as a Potential Accelerator. A Euro-Centric Perspective
  12. The Decline of US Power and the Future of Conflict Management after Covid
  13. Will COVID-19 Cause a War? Understanding the Case of the U.S. and China
  14. Rethinking U.S. National Security after Covid19
  15. COVID-19 and Conflict: Major Risks and Policy Responses
  16. A Pandemic of Violence? The Impact of COVID-19 on Conflict
  17. COVID-19 and the Potential Consequences for Social Stability
  18. The other virus: Covid-19 and violence against civilians
  19. COVID-19 in Africa: Turning a Health Crisis into a Human Security Threat?
  20. Economics and the Covid Pandemic in the UK
  21. Conflict in the Time of (Post-) Corona: Some Assessments from Behavioral Economics
  22. The Data Science of COVID-19 Spread: Some Troubling Current and Future Trends
https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2020-0033
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
COVID-19; threats; terrorism; public opinion

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Editorial
  2. Introduction to the special issue ‘Reflections on the post COVID-19 World’
  3. Research Articles
  4. Bioeconomic Peace Research and Policy
  5. COVID-19 and Collective Action
  6. Capitalism and COVID-19: Crisis at the Crossroads
  7. COVID-19, Security Threats and Public Opinions
  8. Pandemic Police States
  9. Guidelines for Revitalizing International Organizations for the Post-Covid-19 Era
  10. Peacekeeping after Covid-19
  11. COVID-19 as a Potential Accelerator. A Euro-Centric Perspective
  12. The Decline of US Power and the Future of Conflict Management after Covid
  13. Will COVID-19 Cause a War? Understanding the Case of the U.S. and China
  14. Rethinking U.S. National Security after Covid19
  15. COVID-19 and Conflict: Major Risks and Policy Responses
  16. A Pandemic of Violence? The Impact of COVID-19 on Conflict
  17. COVID-19 and the Potential Consequences for Social Stability
  18. The other virus: Covid-19 and violence against civilians
  19. COVID-19 in Africa: Turning a Health Crisis into a Human Security Threat?
  20. Economics and the Covid Pandemic in the UK
  21. Conflict in the Time of (Post-) Corona: Some Assessments from Behavioral Economics
  22. The Data Science of COVID-19 Spread: Some Troubling Current and Future Trends
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