![[IN]Genios](http://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/51c861c1e4b0fb70e38c0a8a/48d2f465-eaf4-4dbc-a7ce-9e75312d5b47/logo+final+%28blanco+y+rojo%29+crop.png?format=1500w)
El efecto del conservadurismo y la política populista en la respuesta de la Pandemia del COVID-19
Juan David Alicea Otero
Departamento de Ciencias Políticas
Facultad Ciencias Sociales, UPR RP
Recibido: 3/10/2022; Revisado: 10/11/2022; Aceptado: 14/12/2022
Abstract
On March 11th of 2020 the World Health Organization declared the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 disease, as a pandemic. This event caused a series of diverse reactions trough the International Community and from being seen as a local outbreak in the Chinese City of Wuhan has turned to be 26 months of global challenges. In this study we focus our analysis on the relation between the pandemic response and the political ideologies of the countries. Because of this observation we propose that the countries with conservatives’ tendencies had a bad management of the emergency.
Keywords: COVID-19 response, political ideology and political conservatism
Resumen
El 11 de marzo de 2020 la Organización Mundial de la Salud declaró el novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causante de la enfermedad de COVID-19, como pandemia. Este evento inesperado causó reacciones diversas en la comunidad internacional y, de ser visualizado como un brote local en la ciudad de Wuhan (China), se ha convertido en 26 meses de retos globales. De esta manera, este trabajo va dirigido a identificar la relación que se observó entre la respuesta de la pandemia y las ideologías políticas. Se propone que los países con tendencias conservadoras tuvieron un manejo deficiente a esta emergencia.
Palabras claves: respuesta a la pandemia del covid-19, ideología política y conservadurismo político
Introduction
On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for COVID-19 disease, as a pandemic. The unexpected rise of this virus causes diverse reactions among the countries, many of them ignored the threat that it represented and viewed as a regional outbreak in the city of Wuhan, China. Given this contempt for the threatening capabilities of the virus to the security of the countries, it went from being a regional disease to over 26 months of global challenges, as reported at the time of this writing. On the page of “Coronavirus Resource Center” at John Hopkins University the disease cost the lives of over 6,000,000 people. However, the impact of this event cannot be limited to the challenge of health systems worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic has been, without a doubt, a historic event that has modified our interpersonal, economic, and political relationships. This research studies the reaction of the political ideology, such as liberal and conservative, have taken over the events previously mention. The problem that this research tries to answer is that countries with conservative ideology tends to lead with the highest number of cases of the virus. This suggests that there is a relationship between conservative ideology and the mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is for this reason that the work is aimed at being able to answer this question and contribute empirical knowledge. Finally, the results will help us understand the effects of political ideology in the development of public policy to face the new challenges for the coming decades.
Literature Review
The central element of the study will be based on the relationship that may exist between political ideologies and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is important to take in consideration that the pandemic is an ongoing event which has limited the availability of information and it can be considered non-existent. Therefore, this literature will focus on the theorical elements that can support the observations previously made, identifying that the countries with conservative tendencies had a poor handling of the pandemic. During the administration of Donald Trump, the United States response, serve as basis to construct a theorical framework, which principals were copied by other leaders with similar ideologies.
Consequently, "Conservative" or "Political Conservatism" must be presented. The most basic definition of this term is found in the textbook "Political Perspectives" by Lyn-Darrel Bender. The Author defines conservatism, "… as the name implies, represents a political orientation to conserve something, which can vary between countries and even within the same country at different historical moments” (Bender, 2005). Based on this the United States is no exception. In his work “Conservatives, Populism, and the Future” (2018), George H. Nash defines American conservatism as one developed under the idea of “intellectual conservatism” and under the presidential mandate of Ronald Reagan. The author presents certain characteristics that were part of the American conservative discourse, where market freedom, individual freedom, and the idea of "small government" (Political Liberalism) are part of it. Although these ideas were and still are present in Trump’s speeches, the author emphasizes the effect that this political ideology has had after the 2016 presidential elections. The main characteristic is a called “to break” with the ruling political classes that have forgotten the needs of the traditional masses, “At the heart of Trumpist populism, however-and I suspect of all populism-is a different yearning: for security, especially for those who feel forgotten and left behind” (Nash, 2018, p. 26). It is to those traditional American masses that the Trumpist discourse alludes and under the phrase "America first" or "Make America Great Again" emphasizes the idea of rescuing and preserving traditional American values that have been corrupted by what the author defines as “political elite of Washington.” In this way, the conservative populism of President Trump has a strong nationalist influence. Although the author has a strong inclination to favor conservatism, this helps to identify certain characteristics and aspects that matter to understand the response of the United States to the pandemic.
There is no doubt that President Trump stands for a new conception in American conservative ideology, since it is the emergence of a wave of conservative populism rooted in great nationalist influences, whose central figure is Donald Trump. Now, it is of utmost importance to evaluate the characteristics based on how it is presented in the work "Trump, Authoritarian populism, and COVID-19 from a US perspective" (2021) by Douglas Kellner. The author is emphatic in identifying that the President's speeches and actions follow a principle of "authoritarianism." Kellner defines Trumpist conservatism as an authoritarian movement that requires a group of followers faithful to the speeches and ideas that the leader presents. These expressions by the author make a relationship between the response of the United States and the conservative ideology that characterizes President Trump. It is no surprise, scientific experts clashed with those who carried out public policies to contain the virus. In Paul E. Rutledge’s “Trump, COVID-19, and the war on expertise” (2020), Trump's conservatism interacts with the various scientific experts in the face of an imminent emergency. This element is essential, since these actions by Trump delayed the response of the Federal Government of the United States and, as the text indicates, every time the scientific community provided a report or raised some type of concern, the President acted with little to no importance and gave recommendations which on many occasions were not backed by any scientific evidence. The conservative base of the President was focused on those traditional American masses who suffered from those "political elites" (The administrative bureaucracy). An argument can be made that the community of scientific experts belongs to that "Administrative Bureaucracy". Because of this, as Rutledge indicates, Trump “declared war” on them from his campaign. Thanks to the authoritarian influence of the President, a replacement with people with less experience and faithful to his figure was established. This has played a critical role in the federal government's responses to the pandemic (Rutledge, 2021).
Following the discussion presented above, it is important to emphasize that the President's position was one that we can consider as "anti-scientific" and that its direct effect was to lead the nation to a period of misinformation about the reality and imminent threat that the virus represented. The vision that his followers presented was at the other end of the spectrum, because “the autocrat mobilizes the masses to follow autocratic rule and dictates, as he attacks democratic forces that oppose him” (Kellner, 2021, p. 32). What was raised is that the masses who favored President Trump's position were repeating his rhetoric. On one end, the virus was taken as one that did not pose a great threat, since it was contained, and it was taken as a political strategy of the left (the Democrats) to delegitimize the president. The effect of these ideas provoked the formulation of less restrictive public policies whose only result was the loss of control and the sudden rise of cases in the United States. An example of this is the issue of the use of masks among the population. This issue is presented in the paper entitled “Conservativism and infrequent mask usage: A study of US counties during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic” by Gonzalez et al (2021). In this study, researchers identify three pillars of Trumpist conservatism, which are: 1) The political leadership of the Republican Party, 2) Conservative Protestantism, and 3) The consumption of media with right-wing ideological tendencies. Each of these was aimed at identifying the group of conservative people and their use of masks, where the President showed strong opposition to use and ridiculed the political opposition for promoting this measure. This was well perceived by his followers who opposed this public health measure with a rhetoric in which those conservative Trumpist values were present. Furthermore, religion also had a strong relationship with Trumps conservatism and populism. The literature has shown that among the groups of powerful conservatives there was a strong opposition to the use of masks, since among them there is an "anti-scientific" idea, "Religious conservatives, guided by pastors and other religious elites, often draw on religious scriptures to oppose scientific recommendations that are perceived as immoral or defined as encroaching on religious liberty or the will or grace of God” (Gonzalez et al., 2021, p. 2372). These religious groups played a fundamental role within Trumpist populism, because the President's discursive resources addressed religion and American Christian values.
Having identified the conservative characteristics of President Trump and how they affected the US response to the threat of COVID-19, this paper briefly addresses how these characteristics are present in different countries. Speed and Mannion (2020) present how the rise of conservative populist governments has affected the development of public policies that are aimed at health systems. In this study, the authors take three countries as the object of investigation: United States, United Kingdom, and Italy. The most important thing about this work is that it supports the ideas that were presented throughout this writing and showed that those conservative characteristics, which were identified in the case of the United States, have been exported and used by leaders of other countries. United Kingdom’s situation identifies what the exit of this country from the European Union (Brexit) represented and its effect on the British Health System. The main issue presented by the authors is about the element of access to health systems. Because it was under the principle of freedom of movement between the European Union, which will be affected by Brexit. Therefore, it is important to identify how that principle was defined and what its effect was for the UK. In conclusion many of the discourses that favored Brexit, identified that the EU’s principle of movement was a cost that put the country's health system in a vulnerable position. It also addressed how a population that is affected by that vulnerability and the reaction provoked from those masses. On the other hand, in the case of Italy, the problem was caused by the mistrust of scientific experts, identified it through the rise of the Movimento Cinque Stelle and its discourse opposing childhood vaccination directed at the conservative masses, which usually oppose compulsory vaccination. The authors concluded that “populist policies tend to create specific barriers and challenges for people accessing services, and for the type of services that are available” (Speed & Manion, 2020, p. 1977).
Altogether, the earlier discussion helps to establish a theoretical framework to understand and identify the relationship between conservative or populist ideology and government action in containing the spread of the virus. First, the example of the United States and President Trump presents us with three characteristics that were key to the nation's poor response to the threat. These characteristics are: 1) high distrust in scientific data: when it was presented from the president who did not give importance to the recommendations of the experts and gave his own recommendations without scientific bases; 2) high degree of influence of political liberalism and conservative populism: when the idea of breaking with "the political elite" and nationalist ideas is presented; and 3) religious fundamentalism: when the position of religious groups and the use of masks is presented. Finally, it is important to bring into consideration that when it is presented, “conservatism,” is referring to the American conception of the term which is founded in the idea of less state intervention, market freedom and individual freedom. This is because this research will identify how these ideas affected the response to the emergency. This note had to be made because the concept differs internationally and is known as “Liberal.”
H1: Thus, the central hypothesis of this research is that countries with conservative and populist ideological governments had more lax measures in their effort to contain the spread of the virus, and thus higher number of cases and deaths.
Research Design
For this paper, government ideology and COVID-19 cases were needed to prove what it is stated in the hypothesis. However, the limited availability or reliability of data represented a challenge. In first place, the countries represent the main unit of analysis. 217 countries and territories were included and 19 were excluded. The names of the exclude countries are presented in Table 1. These were excluded because there was no information regarding COVID-19 cases or their cases were included in the statistics of another country. Consequently, a database was created from the website Our World in Data from Global Change Data Lab and it was recollected the information of cases of COVID-19 per country, the Political Regimes, and the Civil Liberties Index. However, the number of cases were reduced to include the, the information of political parties’ ideology from 163 countries from the Global Party Survey by Pippa Norris (2019).
People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Saint Martin Island (French and Dutch parts), Caiman Islands, The Channel Islands, Marshall Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, The Virgin Islands (American and British), Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, Palau, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu.
TABLE 1: LIST OF EXCLUDED TERRITORIES/COUNTRIES
To build the dataset, I first identified current political party in control of the executive of each country in 2020. To identify the ruling party, the country records found on the website of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were used. On the other hand, if a country didn’t have a republican form of government, the political party that dominated the body with the greatest political power of that government was chosen. In addition, and most importantly, the term of the ruling political party must start before March 11, 2020. Based on the information collected, two categorizations of variables were created. As presented in Table 2, the first category was aimed to identify the political characteristics of the countries (Independent Variable) while the second will analyze specific elements regarding the COVID-19 pandemic (Dependent Variable).
TABLE 2: DESCRIPTION OF THE VARIABLES
This research will analyze the first year of the pandemic. The COVID-19 cases were recollected according to the timeframe between March 11, 2020, to March 11, 2021. These dates were selected because, on March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the virus a pandemic. Then the total cases of COVID-19 were converted into a proportional number of cases per 1,000 inhabitants. By doing this, it will allow to work with more simple numbers and, predominantly, identify the intensity of cases per country.
After establishing the data, we focused the analysis only in four political variables (VP_1, VP_4, VP_5, VP_6) and one COVID-19 variable (VC_2). The focus of those political variables was identified in the literature review. Table 3 presents the operationalization of these variables and what it will measure. In addition, this work will have a correlational-descriptive scope. This research will try to identify how the average number of COVD-19 cases is higher or lower according to the selected political variables. On the other hand, the descriptive scope of the study tries to identify whether there is a relationship between political ideologies and the containment of the spread of the virus. Finally, the ANOVA method was used in the SPSS program which will measure the different categories of variables. This is because as elaborated, the dependent variable is continuous and the independent variable is categorical. The ANOVA analysis will provide the statistical level of significance, which will prove that the variables are correlated.
TABLE 3: OPALIZATION OF ANALYZED VARIABLES
Results
The first analysis that was made, it was focused to identify a possible relation of the political regimes and COVID-19 cases. As a result, 99.99% significance, were able to identify that the countries classified as "Liberal Democracies" and "Electoral Democracies" were the groups with the highest means number of cases. As presented in Table 4, the highest average number of COVID-19 cases corresponds to the group of countries that were classified as “Liberal Democracies”.
TABLE 4: POLITICAL REGIME AND COVID-19 CASES PER 1,000 INHABITANTS
TABLE 4.1: ANOVA OF TABLE 4
In collaboration with Andrés J. Díaz Rivera, Master's student in Cartography and GIS at the State University of New York (SUNY), the QGIS program was used and developed a map with the data previously analyzed. This was made to bring up visually the intensity of cases per country. In Map 1, the countries that wore traditionally classified as “Electoral Democracies” and “Liberal Democracies” are the ones with highest intensity of COVID-19 cases for the analyzed period.
MAP 1: INTENSITY OF CASES BY COVID-19 PER THOUSAND INHABITANTS
BETWEEN THE PERIOD 2020-2021
SOURCE: WORLD BANK, OUR WORLD IN DATA AND POWERED BY QGIS
In the second analysis, the focused was in answering the main hypothesis. Therefore, the analysis of VP_4, VP_5 and VP_6 with the cases of COVID-19 per 1,000 inhabitants was performed. In the analysis of VP_4, with 99.30% significance, it was identified that the highest average number of COVID-19 cases corresponded to the countries classified as Right-Liberal and Right-Conservative (see Table 5). On the other hand, VP_5 was analyzed and as presented in Table 6 in which a 99.20% significance the highest average number of COVID-19 cases corresponded to the countries classified as Pluralist-Liberal. Finally, VP_6 showed that among the classifications that measure the variable, the mean number of COVID-19 cases are very similar to each other. The level of significance was 49%. Thus, this result is not significant (see Table 7).
TABLE 5: CASES PER 1,000 INHABITANTS AND VP_6
TABLE 5.1: ANOVA OF TABLE 5
TABLE 6: CASES PER 1,000 INHABITANTS AND VP_5
TABLE 6.1: ANOVA OF TABLE 6
TABLE 7: CASES PER 1,000 INHABITANTS AND VP_6
TABLE 7.1: ANOVA OF TABLE 7
As a result, the previously made analysis helped answer the central hypothesis. The main theoretical approximation, as established in the literature review, proposed that countries with conservative and populist ideology had a poor response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, what it was presented in the hypothesis was not completely correct. Due to the results obtained divide the hypothesis into two parts, one that was confirmed and the other that was not. Based on the results, it was divided into 1) "Countries with conservative tendencies had a poor response in handling the COVID-19 pandemic" and 2) "Countries with Populist tendencies had a poor response in dealing with the pandemic.” The first part of the hypothesis was confirmed. The result of the analysis of the VP_4 with the cases of COVID-19 per 1,000 inhabitants showed that in the countries with right-wing ideological tendencies they had a high average number of cases. It should be noticed that this interpretation can be differenced because in that same analysis it was identified that the "Right-Liberal" option was the one with the highest average number of cases and the hypothesis established that the countries are under the classification of "conservatives". On the other hand, the second classification with the highest average was the Right-Conservative. Thus, this first part of the hypothesis was confirmed. This is because there was a deficient response to the COVID-19 emergency by countries classified as right-wing on the political spectrum, which are traditionally categorized as "Conservative". This is to the fact, as presented in our literature review, that under the definition of “Conservativism”, right-wing governments are usually recognized for their strong belief in less state intervention. It is for this reason that the data analyzed in Table 5 confirm part of the hypothesis. Now the second part of the hypothesis was completely rejected. The data in Tables 6 and 7 show that the countries classified as pluralist and liberal pluralists had a higher average number of COVID-19 cases. This completely contradicts what was stated in the literature review and completely rejects the second part of the hypothesis.
Conclusions
The results of this paper were not what it was expected, but this research is a steppingstone in the development of empirical knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on this analysis, two important aspects were identified. First, democracies in general had a poor response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondly, it was identified that the impact of right-wing governments played a significant role in the management of the pandemic, but no information was found to prove the impact of conservative populism in the mishandling of the pandemic. Based on the analyzes carried out, even though the hypothesis was not completely verified, there is statistical evidence that suggests a significant relationship between political ideologies and the response to the COVID-19 emergency. Although the data shows us that the “Liberal Democracies” have not positioned themselves completely on the right of the political spectrum, it is in totally agreement with the following sentence, “Over the past decade, many established liberal democracies have witnessed a new wave of “right-wing populist” political movements, parties, and leaders” (Speed & Mannion, 2020, p. 1967). It would be of high empirical value to evaluate the role that the COVID-19 pandemic has played regarding the rise of these governments, leaders, and parties that author presented.
Referencias
Bender, L. D. (2005). Perspectivas políticas (5ta edición). Publicaciones Puertorriqueñas.
Central Inteligence Agency. (n.d.). Countries - The World Factbook. Retrieved May 5, 2022, from https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/
Gonzalez, K. E., James, R., Bjorklund, E. T., & Hill, T. D. (2021). Conservatism and infrequent mask usage: a study of us counties during the novel coronavirus (covid‐19) pandemic. Social Science Quarterly, 102(5), 2368–2382. https://doi-org.uprrp.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/ssqu.13025
John Hopkins University. (n.d.). COVID-19 Map. Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Kellner, D. (2021). Trump, authoritarian populism, and covid-19 from a US perspective. Cultural Politics, 17(1), 28–36. https://doi-org.uprrp.idm.oclc.org/10.1215/17432197-8797487
Nash, G. H. (2018). Conservatives, populism, and the future. Hoover Digest: Research &; Opinion on Public Policy, 2(2), 23-32. https://www.scribd.com/document/376756406/Hoover-Digest-2018-No-2-Spring
Norris, P. (2022, November 22). Global Party Survey, 2019. Harvard dataverse, V3. Retrieved November 22, 2022, from https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/WMGTNS
Rutledge, P. E. (2020). Trump, covid-19, and the war on expertise. American Review of Public Administration, 50(6-7), 505–511. https://doi-org.uprrp.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0275074020941683
Speed, E., & Mannion, R. (2020). Populism and health policy: three international case studies of right‐wing populist policy frames. Sociology of Health & Illness, 42(8), 1967–1981. https://doi-org.uprrp.idm.oclc.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13173
Global Change Data Lab. (n.d.). Political regime, 2020. Our World in Data. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/political-regime?time=2020
Global Change Data Lab. (n.d.). Individual liberties and equality before the law, 2021. Our World in Data. Retrieved April 6, 2022, from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/civil-liberties?tab=table&time=2020&country=ARG%7EAUS%7EBWA%7ECHN
World Bank. (n.d.). Población, total Data. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL
World Health Organization. (2020). WHO Director-General’s opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19. https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---11-march-2020
Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional.