Research note "Trust in COVID-19 government policies"

3 June 2020

During the recent COVID-19 outbreak and subsequent lockdown measures, researchers from the GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence contributed a number of questions to the University of Antwerp’s weekly Corona Study. These questions provided insight into citizens’ trust in government to deal with the coronavirus crisis and the perceived effectiveness of government measures.

This research note covers the results from three waves of the Corona Study.

About this research note

In democratic regimes, trust of citizens in government policy is of great importance to ensure successful policy implementation. It is impossible to put a police officer on each street corner to enforce compliance. Since successful COVID-19 policy also depends on the acceptance of that policy by the citizens, citizens’ trust in these policies is crucial.

In this short research note, prof. dr. Koen Verhoest, prof. dr. Wouter van Dooren and Steven de Vadder, together with the other members of GOVTRUST, discuss novel results on Flemish citizens' trust in government during the coronavirus crisis based on three waves (April 7th, April 28th and May 26, 2020) of the University of Antwerp’s weekly Corona Study. These results provide insight into citizens’ risk perception, trust in government to properly deal with the coronavirus crisis, the trustworthiness of information sources regarding coronavirus, and the extent to which government measures are perceived to be effective and/or restrictive.

You may also be interested in an earlier version of this research note, covering two waves of the Corona Study: