Policy instruments attitudes and support for government responses against Covid-19

Abstract

An individual's political attitudes have been documented as the most important predictor of acceptance of government measures against the COVID-19 pandemic. Their effect, however, is somewhat unclear and cannot be reduced to one dimension. In this article, we test whether general attitudes toward policy instruments might, together with left–right orientation, authoritarianism, social liberalism, and attitudes to state intervention, explain attitudes to policy instruments used to combat COVID-19. The predictiveness of models of attitudes toward three different types of policy instruments to address the COVID-19 pandemic was tested using a study of Czech university students). We found that individuals' general attitudes toward policy instruments are best measured by posing direct survey questions. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the independent effects of general attitudes toward three different types of policy instruments on attitudes toward specific policy instruments for combating COVID-19. We found that an individuals' general tendency to prefer an information, regulatory, or economic instrument significantly affects their attitude toward specific policy solutions, even after controlling for political orientation. These results provide novel empirical evidence for the autonomy of policy instruments attitudes (APIA) theory. The general attitudes toward policy instrument types are reflected in individuals' attitudes toward specific policy instruments, such as those used to combat COVID-19.