How does Successfully Curbing a Pandemic Influence Leader Approval in a Polarized Society? Insights from a Natural Experiment in Israel during COVID-19

This paper uses data from a natural experiment to examine attitude formation in response to a vaccination policy that ended the COVID-19 crisis in Israel earlier than in other countries. Two significant political trends in Israel and other democratic countries—the rise of populist authoritarian leaders and political polarization—lead to competing expectations. First, the public will rally behind a leader’s reasonable claim of saving the country from the pandemic. Second, a rally will emerge only within the leader’s political camp. The findings do not support the first expectation and only partially support the second expectation. This paper highlighted political polarization as a critical determinant of public receptivity to messages attributing success in fighting a pandemic to the government and its leader. In politically polarized societies, people with strong negative views of the country’s leader are likely to respond skeptically to rhetoric that depicts the leader as the people’s savior. Thus, the leader’s approval rating increases entirely within the leader’s political camp.