Pathogen Threat Increases Electoral Success for Conservative Parties: Results from a Natural Experiment with COVID-19 in France

Abstract

Conservative ideology is closely linked with pathogen prevalence, and adherence to conservative values increases under pathogen threat. To this day, few studies have demonstrated this effect using ecological data. For the first time, we analyse results from an election (the 2020 French local election) which was held during the growing COVID-19 spread in the country. Using mixed modelling on county-level data (N = 96), we show that perceived COVID-19 threat (search volume indices) but not real threat (prevalence rates) prior to the election are positively associated with an increase in conservative votes only. These results were robust to adjustment on several covariates including abstention rates, prior electoral scores for conservative parties and economic characteristics. Overall, a 1% increase in COVID-19 search volumes lead to an increase in conservative votes of .25%, 95%CI[.08,.41]. These results highlight the relevance of evolutionary theory for understanding real-life political behaviour and indicate that the current COVID-19 pandemic could have a substantial impact on electoral outcomes.

When in Danger, Turn Right: Does Covid-19 Threat Promote Social Conservatism and Right-Wing Presidential Candidates?

“…We demonstrate that people who feel threatened react with anxiety, tend to seek greater structure in their environment, and thus, may shift toward social conservatism. All of this might increase the support for conservative presidential candidates, an effect also reported in parallel research with over 240,000 participants in the USA (Zmigrod et al, 2020), and during nationwide local election in France (Adam-Troian et al, 2020). We emphasize the observed similarity of this effect in two countries:…”

Dual Evolutionary Foundations of Political Ideology Predict Divergent Responses to COVID-19

“…(2) Change in ideology as a result of COVID-19 threats. Previous studies using longitudinal data have found mixed results regarding the effect of the pandemic on unidimensional measures of ideology [68][69][70][71][72][73][74] . Our results add to evidence for a shift towards social conservatism specifically 74 , and…”

“…During the current pandemic, no change was observed in unidimensional ideology in a US sample, but there was an increase in support for conformity to traditional gender roles 70 . In France, county-level data showed that perceived threat (looking up coronavirus-related words on the internet) but not real threat (number of diagnosed cases) before an election predicted increased voting for conservatives in the election 71 . When it comes to the dual dimensions, most studies are not longitudinal but still offer some evidence connected to our prediction.…”

Basic human values during the COVID-19 outbreak, perceived threat and their relationships with compliance with movement restrictions and social distancing

“…Moreover, under pathogen threat, individuals tend to display increased risk aversion and decreased openness to change [ 30 ]. This system thus tends to ‘ favor behaviors that reduce interpersonal contacts—hence limit one’s likelihood of contracting infectious diseases’ [ 31 ]. Thus, the behavioral immune system has been found to be associated with concern and preventative health behaviors in the time of COVID-19 [ 32 ].…”