Acceptance of Political Restrictions and Societal Polarization during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study of Austria and Hungary
- Author(s)
- Pál Susánszky, Bernhard Kittel, Akos Kopper
- Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments took measures to restrict political liberties, claiming that these restrictions were necessary to contain the spread of the virus. In this study, we scrutinize differences in citizens’ willingness to accept three types of political restrictions: restricting the media, banning protests, and introducing extensive state surveillance. We focus on two European countries: Austria and Hungary. While we find that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions, we also find that citizens differ in their willingness to support the three types of restrictions depending on whether the given measure affects them directly. We also find differences between Austria and Hungary concerning the way political trust and political values affect the acceptance of restrictions, which may be rooted in the larger polarization of Hungarian society. Furthermore, we observe that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Economic Sociology
- External organisation(s)
- Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest
- Journal
- International Journal of Comparative Sociology
- Volume
- 65
- Pages
- 335-354
- No. of pages
- 20
- ISSN
- 0020-7152
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152231187196
- Publication date
- 07-2023
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 504030 Economic sociology
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science, Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/50e4c399-8afc-4a60-ab82-70ca678736e9