Populism, compliance, and social norm enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic in five European countries

Boda, Zsolt and Farkas, Eszter and Susánszky, Pál and Abadi, David and Fischer, Agneta (2025) Populism, compliance, and social norm enforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic in five European countries. INTERSECTIONS: EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS, 11 (2). pp. 165-182. ISSN 2416-089X

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Abstract

In order to reduce the spread of COVID-19, citizens have been cooperating with their governments by complying with protective measures for almost two years. However, compliance with these COVID-19 measures can be imposed not only by the state, but also by citizens’ own reactions to each other’s protective behavior. More specifically, by reacting negatively toward others’ transgression of COVID-19 measures, one can enforce social norms. Social norm enforcement can support the general level of compliance and enhance the effectiveness of COVID-19-related measures. In this paper we examine self-reported compliance and social norm enforcement related to COVID-19 measures in five European countries during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to socio-demographic characteristics, we include politics-related variables, in particular populist attitudes, and measure these in light of a latent variable analysis. We found that populist attitudes—contrary to our expectations—increase compliance with COVID-19 measures, but there was no significant relation between populist attitudes and social norm enforcement. These results can establish future research on how populist attitudes and COVID-19 behaviors interrelate.

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