Right-Wing Populism and the COVID-19 Shock: Evidence From Early Superspreader Events

Can public health shocks boost right-wing populism? We investigate how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted support for populists in Western Europe, an unresolved debate on which surprisingly little systematic evidence exists. Building on theories of populist mobilization in societal crises, we hypothesize a positive aggregate effect driven by declining confidence in public institutions, intensifying hostility toward outgroups, and opposition to government restrictions. Exploiting variation in local COVID-19 incidence stemming from the idiosyncratic timing of early superspreader events, we find a rise in online engagement with populists in regions with higher infection rates. We document a similar increase in populist support in the 2020 French municipal elections and in representative British and Dutch survey data. These varied sources corroborate our three posited mechanisms while casting doubt on possible alternative economic, social, and psychological channels. The findings broaden our understanding of the types of societal shocks that foster extreme politics.