How Do Coronavirus Attitudes Fit into Britain's Ideological Landscape?

18 Pages Posted: 22 Nov 2020

See all articles by Jonathan Mellon

Jonathan Mellon

West Point - Department of Systems Engineering

Jack Bailey

The University of Manchester

Christopher Prosser

University of London - Royal Holloway

Date Written: November 19, 2020

Abstract

Coronavirus has upended British politics in 2020 but where does it fit into the ideological map of party competition? Recent British elections have seen a shift from economic left-right competition between the major parties to competition on the cultural (liberal-authoritarian) dimension, most notably in terms of the issues of immigration and membership of the European Union. Using British Election Study data from June 2020, we find that coronavirus attitudes fall primarily onto the traditional economic left-right dimension, with left wing voters more willing to make economic sacrifices of various types to reduce infections. However, more draconian coronavirus measures (such as fining or imprisoning those who violate the coronavirus rules) are most supported by voters who score high on authoritarianism. We show that the structure of coronavirus attitudes puts the Conservative government in a difficult position where many steps it takes to reduce infections risk alienating its core economic right wing vote.

Keywords: COVID-19, british election study, voter behaviour, liberal-authoritarianism, left-right, economic values, lockdown, party competition

Suggested Citation

Mellon, Jonathan and Bailey, Jack and Prosser, Christopher, How Do Coronavirus Attitudes Fit into Britain's Ideological Landscape? (November 19, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3733882 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3733882

Jonathan Mellon (Contact Author)

West Point - Department of Systems Engineering ( email )

600 Thayer Rd
West Point, NY 10996
United States

Jack Bailey

The University of Manchester ( email )

Oxford Road
Manchester, N/A M13 9PL
United Kingdom

HOME PAGE: http://www.jack-bailey.co.uk

Christopher Prosser

University of London - Royal Holloway ( email )

Egham Hill
Egham, TW20 0EX

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
213
Abstract Views
1,145
Rank
259,350
PlumX Metrics