Acceptance of Political Restrictions and Societal Polarization during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Comparative Study of Austria and Hungary

Autor(en)
Pál Susánszky, Bernhard Kittel, Akos Kopper
Abstrakt

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(en)
Institut für Wirtschaftssoziologie
Externe Organisation(en)
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Eötvös Loránd University Budapest
Journal
International Journal of Comparative Sociology
Band
65
Seiten
335-354
Anzahl der Seiten
20
ISSN
0020-7152
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/00207152231187196
Publikationsdatum
07-2023
Peer-reviewed
Ja
ÖFOS 2012
504030 Wirtschaftssoziologie
Schlagwörter
ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete
Sociology and Political Science, Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
Link zum Portal
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/acceptance-of-political-restrictions-and-societal-polarization-during-the-covid19-pandemic-a-comparative-study-of-austria-and-hungary(50e4c399-8afc-4a60-ab82-70ca678736e9).html