Falling Flat? The Impact of State Legitimacy, Capacity, and Political Trust on Flattening the Curve of COVID-19
Main Article Content
Abstract
As countries worldwide struggled to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in March and April of 2020, observers often remarked that countries with higher levels of regime legitimacy, state capacity, and political trust were more likely to curtail the spread of the virus. Remarkably, using quantitative data from 10 different sources, this article finds that this generalizable theory runs counter to expectations. Countries with higher levels of political legitimacy, trust, and capacity experienced greater increases in COVID cases during the onset of the pandemic, albeit the strength of these relationships is modest. To develop generalizable theories predicting virus containment, researchers should turn their attention to unique factors characterizing industrialized democracies that make a virus much harder to contain and expand their scope by using transdisciplinary approaches to understanding the pandemic
Keywords:
COVID-19, pandemic, political trust, legitimacy, state capacity, Belgium, the United States, Ireland, Switzerland
Article Details
How to Cite
DOBBS, Kirstie Lynn.
Falling Flat? The Impact of State Legitimacy, Capacity, and Political Trust on Flattening the Curve of COVID-19.
Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 10, n. 5, june 2022.
ISSN 2375-1924.
Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/2805>. Date accessed: 05 nov. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v10i5.2805.
Section
Research Articles
The Medical Research Archives grants authors the right to publish and reproduce the unrevised contribution in whole or in part at any time and in any form for any scholarly non-commercial purpose with the condition that all publications of the contribution include a full citation to the journal as published by the Medical Research Archives.
References
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[8] Christensen T. Lægreid P. Balancing governance capacity and legitimacy: how the Norwegian government handled the COVID‐19 crisis as a high performer. Public Administration Review. 2020; 80(5), 774-779. doi: 10.1111/puar.13241.
[9] Woo JJ. Policy capacity and Singapore’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy and Society. 2020; 39(3), 345-362. doi: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1783789.
[10] Toshkov D. Carroll B. Yesilkagit K. Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences: what accounts for the variety of national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe?. Journal of European Public Policy. 2021, 1-20. doi: 10.1080/13501763.2021.1928270.
[11] Rasmussen SE, Eqbali A. Iranians Defy Authorities in Bid to Access Holy Sites Closed Amid Coronavirus. The Wall Street Journal. March 17, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-worshippers-defy-authorities-in-bid-to-access-holy-sites-closed-amid-coronavirus-11584460895. March 12, 2022.
[12] Carothers T. O’Donohue A. Polarization and the pandemic. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published April 28, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/04/28/polarization-and-pandemic-pub-81638.
[13] Cunningham E, Bennet D. Coronavirus Burial Pits so Vast They’re Visible from Space. The Washington Post. March 12, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/iran-coronavirus-outbreak-graves/. March 12, 2022.
[14] Bloomberg. As Asia Panics Over Coronavirus, Singapore Wins Praise for its Approach. The Japan Times. February 11, 2020. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/11/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/asia-coronavirus-singapore/#.Xp8eGHdFyUl. March 12, 2022. Accessed March 12, 2022.
[15] Kleinfeld, R. Do authoritarian or democratic countries handle pandemics better? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published March 31, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404.
[16] Ling, J. Canada Shows How Easy Virus Testing Can Be. Foreign Policy. March 13, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/13/canada-shows-how-easy-virus-testing-can-be/. March 12, 2022.
[17] Ramirez, MS. Canada’s response to coronavirus. Wilson Center. Published March 19, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/canadas-response-coronavirus.
[18] Oates, W. Fiscal Federalism. Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich; 1972.
[19] Dollery B. Wallis J. The Political Economy of Local Government. Edward Elgar Publishing; 2001.
[20] Ivanyna M. Shah, A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization. Economics. 2014; 8, 2014-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-3.
[21] Shah A. Shah S. The new vision of local governance and the evolving role of local governments. In Sha A, ed. Local Governance in Developing Countries. World Bank; 2006: 1-46.
[22] Fukuyama, F. The Thing That Determines a Country’s Resistance to the Coronavirus. The Atlantic. March 30, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/thing-determines-how-well-countries-respond-coronavirus/609025/. March 12, 2022.
[23] ibid.
[25] Rothstein, B. Trust is the Key to Fighting the Pandemic. Scientific American. March 24, 2020. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/trust-is-the-key-to-fighting-the-pandemic/.
[25] Schrad, ML. The Secret to Coronavirus Success is Trust. Foreign Policy. April 15, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/secret-success-coronavirus-trust-public-policy/. March 12, 2020.
[26] Duffin-Simmons, S. Public Trust in Health Authorities is Key to Fighting Coronavirus – is it at Risk? National Public Radio. March 5, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/05/810129440/public-trust-in-health-authorities-is-key-to-fighting-coronavirus-is-it-at-risk. March 12, 2022.
[27] Schrad, ML. The Secret to Coronavirus Success is Trust. Foreign Policy. April 15, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/secret-success-coronavirus-trust-public-policy/. March 12, 2020.
[28] Rothstein, B. Trust is the Key to Fighting the Pandemic. Scientific American. March 24, 2020. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/trust-is-the-key-to-fighting-the-pandemic/.
[29] Ortiz-Ospina, E. Roser M. Trust. OurworldinData.org. Published in 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://ourworldindata.org/trust.
[30] [dataset] BTI Transformation Index, 2020. https://www.bti-project.org/en/meta/downloads.html.
[31] [dataset] Institutional Profiles Database, 2016. https://govdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/h0c4ce335?country=BRA&indicator=30825&viz=line_chart&years=2001,2006.
[32] International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Election guide. Accessed April 19, 2020. http://www.electionguide.org/elections/.
[33] [dataset] International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, The global state of democracy indices, v3, 2019. https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/dataset-resources.
[34] [dataset] Ivanyna M. Shah A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization, Harvard Dataverse, v2, 2014. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/24566.
[35] [dataset] Kaufmann D. Kraay A. Worldwide governance indicators, 2020. http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/.
[36] National Democratic Institute. Global elections calendar. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.ndi.org/elections-calendar-all?election_type=All.
[37] Transparency International. Corruption perceptions index 2019. Retrieved from https://www.transparency.org/cpi2019?/news/feature/cpi-2019, 2020 (accessed 19 April 2020).
[38] World Economic Forum. Public trust in politicians. Acessed April 19, 2020. http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index-2017-2018/competitiveness-rankings/#series=EOSQ041.
[39] World Economic Forum. Quality of overall infrastructure. http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index-2017-2018/competitiveness-rankings/#series=EOSQ056, 2020 (accessed 19 April 2020).
[40] Worldometer. Countries in the world by population. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/.
[41] Worldometer. GDP by country. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/.
[42] Russell TW. Hellewell J. Abbott SN. Golding H. Gibbs, CI. Jarvis KVZ. et al. Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting. Centre for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases Repository. 2020: 1-6. April 4, 2022. Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting | CMMID Repository (fondazionecerm.it).
[43] Ivanyna M. Shah, A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization. Economics. 2014; 8, 2014-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-3.
[44] Van Overbeke T. Stadig D. High politics in the low countries: COVID‐19 and the politics of strained multi‐level policy cooperation in Belgium and the Netherlands. European Policy Analysis. 2020; 6(2), 305-317. doi: 10.1002/epa2.1101
[45] Reybrouck, Karel. "Federal Belgium’s Covid-19 Response: dualism and exclusive powers under pressure." Lex-Atlas: Covid-19. May 13, 2021.Federal Belgium’s Covid-19 Response: dualism and exclusive powers under pressure (lexatlas-c19.org). April 4, 2022.
[46] Popelier P. Bursens P. Managing the COVID-19 Crisis in a Divided Belgian Federation: Cooperation Against All Odds. In: Steytler, N. ed. Combatting the COVID-19 Pandemic: Federalism a Boon or Bane? 2021: 88-105.
[47] Camacho AE. Glicksman RL. Structured to fail: lessons from the Trump administration's faulty pandemic planning and Response. Scholarly Commons. 2021 Accessed April 4, 2022. Structured to Fail: Lessons from the Trump Administration's Faulty Pandemic Planning and Response (gwu.edu).
[48] Vazquez M. Klein B. Trump Again Defends Use of the Term China Virus. CNN. March 17, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/trump-china-coronavirus/index.html. April 4, 2022.
[49] Government of Ireland. COVID Tracker App - Ireland's Coronavirus Contact Tracing App. 2020. Covidtracker.gov.ie. Published in 2020. https://covidtracker.gov.ie/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9_mDBhCGARIsAN3PaFMaWW1uE4nSxLiD8WtQTCCotKUsYrEI7QRQjeywmOU9N0flkXncqKkaAo55EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.
[50] O’Sullivan, Clare. Ireland’s Response to Covid-19. Arcgis Online.April 21, 2021.Ireland's Response to Covid-19 (arcgis.com)). April 4, 2022.
[51] Sager F. Mavrot C. Switzerland's COVID‐19 policy response: Consociational crisis management and neo‐corporatist reopening. European Policy Analysis. 2020; 6(2), 293-304. doi: 10.1002/epa2.1094.
[52] Abboud L J. Miller, and J. Espinoza. How Europe Splintered Over Contact Tracing Apps. Financial Times. May 10, 2020. How Europe splintered over contact tracing apps | Financial Times (ft.com). April 4, 2022.
[53] Boseley, S. Measles is on the Rise in Europe – and Populism Could be to Blame. The Guardian. August 22, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/22/measles-rise-europe-populism-andrew-wakefield. March 12, 2022.
[54] Sheldon R. Cleghorn N. Penfold C. Brown A. Newmark T. Exploring attitudes to GM food: final report. Food Standards Agency: National Center for Social Research. Published in 2009. Accessed April 4, 2022. http://natcen.ac.uk/media/26838/exploring-attitudes-gm-food.pdf.
[55] Seyd, B. Coronavirus: Trust in Political Figures is at a Low Just as They Need Citizens to Act on their Advice. The Conversation. March 11, 2020. https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-trust-in-political-figures-is-at-a-low-just-as-they-need-citizens-to-act-on-their-advice-133284. March 12, 2022.
[56] Bouvy S. Ceulemans L. Konnova A. Mennens R. Nankova M. Nguyen T. Sandler JP. et al. Uprooting deeper causes of Belgium's lack of pandemic preparedness in the Covid-19 crisis. Transdisciplinary Insights. 2021; 5(1), 7-8. Accessed April 4, 2022. Transdisciplinary Insights: Ingenta Connect Table Of Contents.
[2] Kleinfeld, R. Do authoritarian or democratic countries handle pandemics better? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published March 31, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404.
[3] Berengaut, A. Democracies are Better at Fighting Outbreaks. The Atlantic. February 24, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-democracies-are-better-fighting-outbreaks/606976/. Accessed March 12, 2022.
[4] Berengaut, A. Democracies are Better at Fighting Outbreaks. The Atlantic. February 24, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-democracies-are-better-fighting-outbreaks/606976/. Accessed March 12, 2022.
[5] Kleinfeld, R. Do authoritarian or democratic countries handle pandemics better? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published March 31, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404.
[6] Pew Research Center. Public trust in government. Published April 11, 2019. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://www.people-press.org/2019/04/11/public-trust-in-government-1958-2019/.
[7] Hartley K. Jarvis DS. Policymaking in a low-trust state: legitimacy, state capacity, and responses to COVID-19 in Hong Kong. Policy and Society. 2020; 39(3), 403-423. doi: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1783791.
[8] Christensen T. Lægreid P. Balancing governance capacity and legitimacy: how the Norwegian government handled the COVID‐19 crisis as a high performer. Public Administration Review. 2020; 80(5), 774-779. doi: 10.1111/puar.13241.
[9] Woo JJ. Policy capacity and Singapore’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy and Society. 2020; 39(3), 345-362. doi: 10.1080/14494035.2020.1783789.
[10] Toshkov D. Carroll B. Yesilkagit K. Government capacity, societal trust or party preferences: what accounts for the variety of national policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe?. Journal of European Public Policy. 2021, 1-20. doi: 10.1080/13501763.2021.1928270.
[11] Rasmussen SE, Eqbali A. Iranians Defy Authorities in Bid to Access Holy Sites Closed Amid Coronavirus. The Wall Street Journal. March 17, 2020. https://www.wsj.com/articles/iranian-worshippers-defy-authorities-in-bid-to-access-holy-sites-closed-amid-coronavirus-11584460895. March 12, 2022.
[12] Carothers T. O’Donohue A. Polarization and the pandemic. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published April 28, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/04/28/polarization-and-pandemic-pub-81638.
[13] Cunningham E, Bennet D. Coronavirus Burial Pits so Vast They’re Visible from Space. The Washington Post. March 12, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/iran-coronavirus-outbreak-graves/. March 12, 2022.
[14] Bloomberg. As Asia Panics Over Coronavirus, Singapore Wins Praise for its Approach. The Japan Times. February 11, 2020. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/02/11/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/asia-coronavirus-singapore/#.Xp8eGHdFyUl. March 12, 2022. Accessed March 12, 2022.
[15] Kleinfeld, R. Do authoritarian or democratic countries handle pandemics better? Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Published March 31, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://carnegieendowment.org/2020/03/31/do-authoritarian-or-democratic-countries-handle-pandemics-better-pub-81404.
[16] Ling, J. Canada Shows How Easy Virus Testing Can Be. Foreign Policy. March 13, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/13/canada-shows-how-easy-virus-testing-can-be/. March 12, 2022.
[17] Ramirez, MS. Canada’s response to coronavirus. Wilson Center. Published March 19, 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/canadas-response-coronavirus.
[18] Oates, W. Fiscal Federalism. Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich; 1972.
[19] Dollery B. Wallis J. The Political Economy of Local Government. Edward Elgar Publishing; 2001.
[20] Ivanyna M. Shah, A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization. Economics. 2014; 8, 2014-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-3.
[21] Shah A. Shah S. The new vision of local governance and the evolving role of local governments. In Sha A, ed. Local Governance in Developing Countries. World Bank; 2006: 1-46.
[22] Fukuyama, F. The Thing That Determines a Country’s Resistance to the Coronavirus. The Atlantic. March 30, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/thing-determines-how-well-countries-respond-coronavirus/609025/. March 12, 2022.
[23] ibid.
[25] Rothstein, B. Trust is the Key to Fighting the Pandemic. Scientific American. March 24, 2020. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/trust-is-the-key-to-fighting-the-pandemic/.
[25] Schrad, ML. The Secret to Coronavirus Success is Trust. Foreign Policy. April 15, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/secret-success-coronavirus-trust-public-policy/. March 12, 2020.
[26] Duffin-Simmons, S. Public Trust in Health Authorities is Key to Fighting Coronavirus – is it at Risk? National Public Radio. March 5, 2020. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/05/810129440/public-trust-in-health-authorities-is-key-to-fighting-coronavirus-is-it-at-risk. March 12, 2022.
[27] Schrad, ML. The Secret to Coronavirus Success is Trust. Foreign Policy. April 15, 2020. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/secret-success-coronavirus-trust-public-policy/. March 12, 2020.
[28] Rothstein, B. Trust is the Key to Fighting the Pandemic. Scientific American. March 24, 2020. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/trust-is-the-key-to-fighting-the-pandemic/.
[29] Ortiz-Ospina, E. Roser M. Trust. OurworldinData.org. Published in 2020. Accessed April 4, 2022. https://ourworldindata.org/trust.
[30] [dataset] BTI Transformation Index, 2020. https://www.bti-project.org/en/meta/downloads.html.
[31] [dataset] Institutional Profiles Database, 2016. https://govdata360.worldbank.org/indicators/h0c4ce335?country=BRA&indicator=30825&viz=line_chart&years=2001,2006.
[32] International Foundation for Electoral Systems. Election guide. Accessed April 19, 2020. http://www.electionguide.org/elections/.
[33] [dataset] International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, The global state of democracy indices, v3, 2019. https://www.idea.int/gsod-indices/dataset-resources.
[34] [dataset] Ivanyna M. Shah A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization, Harvard Dataverse, v2, 2014. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/24566.
[35] [dataset] Kaufmann D. Kraay A. Worldwide governance indicators, 2020. http://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/.
[36] National Democratic Institute. Global elections calendar. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.ndi.org/elections-calendar-all?election_type=All.
[37] Transparency International. Corruption perceptions index 2019. Retrieved from https://www.transparency.org/cpi2019?/news/feature/cpi-2019, 2020 (accessed 19 April 2020).
[38] World Economic Forum. Public trust in politicians. Acessed April 19, 2020. http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index-2017-2018/competitiveness-rankings/#series=EOSQ041.
[39] World Economic Forum. Quality of overall infrastructure. http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-index-2017-2018/competitiveness-rankings/#series=EOSQ056, 2020 (accessed 19 April 2020).
[40] Worldometer. Countries in the world by population. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/.
[41] Worldometer. GDP by country. Accessed April 19, 2020. https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-by-country/.
[42] Russell TW. Hellewell J. Abbott SN. Golding H. Gibbs, CI. Jarvis KVZ. et al. Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting. Centre for Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases Repository. 2020: 1-6. April 4, 2022. Using a delay-adjusted case fatality ratio to estimate under-reporting | CMMID Repository (fondazionecerm.it).
[43] Ivanyna M. Shah, A. How close is your government to its people? Worldwide indicators on localization and decentralization. Economics. 2014; 8, 2014-3. http://dx.doi.org/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2014-3.
[44] Van Overbeke T. Stadig D. High politics in the low countries: COVID‐19 and the politics of strained multi‐level policy cooperation in Belgium and the Netherlands. European Policy Analysis. 2020; 6(2), 305-317. doi: 10.1002/epa2.1101
[45] Reybrouck, Karel. "Federal Belgium’s Covid-19 Response: dualism and exclusive powers under pressure." Lex-Atlas: Covid-19. May 13, 2021.Federal Belgium’s Covid-19 Response: dualism and exclusive powers under pressure (lexatlas-c19.org). April 4, 2022.
[46] Popelier P. Bursens P. Managing the COVID-19 Crisis in a Divided Belgian Federation: Cooperation Against All Odds. In: Steytler, N. ed. Combatting the COVID-19 Pandemic: Federalism a Boon or Bane? 2021: 88-105.
[47] Camacho AE. Glicksman RL. Structured to fail: lessons from the Trump administration's faulty pandemic planning and Response. Scholarly Commons. 2021 Accessed April 4, 2022. Structured to Fail: Lessons from the Trump Administration's Faulty Pandemic Planning and Response (gwu.edu).
[48] Vazquez M. Klein B. Trump Again Defends Use of the Term China Virus. CNN. March 17, 2020. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/politics/trump-china-coronavirus/index.html. April 4, 2022.
[49] Government of Ireland. COVID Tracker App - Ireland's Coronavirus Contact Tracing App. 2020. Covidtracker.gov.ie. Published in 2020. https://covidtracker.gov.ie/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw9_mDBhCGARIsAN3PaFMaWW1uE4nSxLiD8WtQTCCotKUsYrEI7QRQjeywmOU9N0flkXncqKkaAo55EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds.
[50] O’Sullivan, Clare. Ireland’s Response to Covid-19. Arcgis Online.April 21, 2021.Ireland's Response to Covid-19 (arcgis.com)). April 4, 2022.
[51] Sager F. Mavrot C. Switzerland's COVID‐19 policy response: Consociational crisis management and neo‐corporatist reopening. European Policy Analysis. 2020; 6(2), 293-304. doi: 10.1002/epa2.1094.
[52] Abboud L J. Miller, and J. Espinoza. How Europe Splintered Over Contact Tracing Apps. Financial Times. May 10, 2020. How Europe splintered over contact tracing apps | Financial Times (ft.com). April 4, 2022.
[53] Boseley, S. Measles is on the Rise in Europe – and Populism Could be to Blame. The Guardian. August 22, 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/22/measles-rise-europe-populism-andrew-wakefield. March 12, 2022.
[54] Sheldon R. Cleghorn N. Penfold C. Brown A. Newmark T. Exploring attitudes to GM food: final report. Food Standards Agency: National Center for Social Research. Published in 2009. Accessed April 4, 2022. http://natcen.ac.uk/media/26838/exploring-attitudes-gm-food.pdf.
[55] Seyd, B. Coronavirus: Trust in Political Figures is at a Low Just as They Need Citizens to Act on their Advice. The Conversation. March 11, 2020. https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-trust-in-political-figures-is-at-a-low-just-as-they-need-citizens-to-act-on-their-advice-133284. March 12, 2022.
[56] Bouvy S. Ceulemans L. Konnova A. Mennens R. Nankova M. Nguyen T. Sandler JP. et al. Uprooting deeper causes of Belgium's lack of pandemic preparedness in the Covid-19 crisis. Transdisciplinary Insights. 2021; 5(1), 7-8. Accessed April 4, 2022. Transdisciplinary Insights: Ingenta Connect Table Of Contents.