How Will the COVID-19

Pandemic Affect Democracy?

Lauri Rapeli & Inga Saikkonen

Abstract: In this commentary, we discuss some possible effects of the

COVID-19 pandemic in both established and newer democracies. We ex-
pect that the pandemic will not have grave long-term effects on established
democracies. We assess the future of democracy after COVID-19 in terms
of immediate effects on current democratic leaders, and speculate on the
long-term effects on support for democratic institutions and principles. We
also discuss possible implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global
trends in democratic backsliding. We predict that, in the short term, the
repercussions of the pandemic can aggravate the situation in countries that
are already experiencing democratic erosion. However, the long term eco-
nomic effects of the pandemic may be more detrimental to non-democratic
governance.
Keywords: coronavirus, covid, democracy, democratic backsliding, electoral
democracy, future of democracy

Introduction

Democracy, understood as electoral democracy based on representation,

was not at its strongest when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The Freedom
House organization, which has monitored global democracy for decades,
reported in 2020 that democracy has declined in the world for 14 years in
a row, and the decline has occurred in many different parts of the world,
in both established and more fragile democratic systems. The V-Dem In-
stitute’s 2020 Democracy Report found that democracies no longer con-
stitute the majority of the world’s political regimes for the first time in
two decades (Lührmann, Maerz et al. 2020). The longevity of the declining
trend in democracy is a cause for concern in the face of a global pan-
demic. If autocracy is gaining ground and democracy is backsliding even
in old and robust democracies, how will the pandemic affect the already
uncertain future of democracy?
In this commentary, we address the issue by discussing some possible
scenarios in established and newer democracies, respectively, because it

Democratic Theory Volume 7, Issue 2, Winter 2020: 25–32

doi: 10.3167/dt.2020.070204 ISSN 2332-8894 (Print), ISSN 2332-8908 (Online)
is likely that the degree of democratic consolidation will be decisive for
how democracies can weather the storm. We predict that the COVID-19
pandemic will not have grave long-term effects on established democ-
racies that are characterized by several decades of uninterrupted demo-
cratic rule with genuinely open competition for political power. Most of
the affluent, industrial Western nations belong to this category. We assess
the future of democracy after COVID-19 in terms of immediate effects on
current democratic leaders, and speculate on the long-term effects on
support for democratic institutions and principles.
However, we expect that the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic
may seriously aggravate the situation in countries where democracy is al-
ready eroding, such as Hungary and Poland. We predict that, in the more
immediate term, emergency situations associated with the management
of the COVID-19 pandemic can exacerbate the concentration of power on
the executive in already backsliding countries. Yet, we speculate that the
long-term economic effects of the pandemic may undermine the incum-
bents’ grip on power in autocratizing regimes.

Impact on Established Democracies

It is widely held that during (military) crises people “rally round the flag,”
that is, elected leaders gain more popular support than they had under
normal circumstances (Mueller 1970). Several empirical analyses suggest
support for the contention, as long as the crisis or threat is severe enough
(Hetherington and Nelson 2003). Two explanations have been offered.
First, due to a surge in patriotic sentiment, people gather round the na-
tion’s front figure(s) as they look for security in the face of external threat.
Second, the relative silence of political opposition and reduced partisan
animosity creates a fundamental change in the information landscape,
leading the public to follow the example (Murray 2017).
The COVID-19 case undoubtedly counts as severe enough and evi-
dence is already cumulating. Using survey data, Blais et al. (2020) find
substantial increases in support for current leaders in several Western
democracies. Australia is a case in point, where the previously unpop-
ular Prime Minister Scott Morrison has seen a massive 25 percentage
point increase in job approval between January and June 2020 (Essen-
tialResearch 2020). In a tougher test of the hypothesis, the parliamen-
tary election in South Korea in April was a resounding victory for the
office-holders, suggesting that the COVID-19 bump in political support
is very concrete. However, Amat et al. (2020) demonstrate that instead
of only backing up the current leadership, demands for more expert-led

26 Democratic Theory  �  Winter 2020

decision-making grew significantly louder in Spain as a result of the
COVID-19 crisis.
The Spanish case leads to the more pressing question of whether
COVID-19 could have more fundamental consequences for attitudes to-
ward democracy and its institutions. Could the pandemic undermine the
legitimacy of representative democracy—or strengthen it? Despite the
undeniable signs of some degree of democratic malaise in established de-
mocracies, mass-level support for democracy remains, historically speak-
ing, high. Moreover, several decades of research has shown that the most
basic political attitudes, such as political interest and trust, are quite sta-
ble at the individual level, suggesting that established democracies are
unlikely to lose much of their diffuse support among the public.
Blais et al. (2020) find small increases in trust in government and sat-
isfaction with democracy, while political interest and left/right self-iden-
tification remain stable. Relying on similar data from Canada, Harell
(2020) also finds a surge in trust in government as well as decreased par-
tisan tension. It therefore seems that the COVID-19 effect goes beyond
verbal expressions of leadership support, extending to political trust and
satisfaction levels.
But whether such effects are durable remains an open question.
Previous research suggests only short-term impacts in trust levels and
no consequences whatsoever for the more crucial factors such as party
identification (e.g. Hetherington and Nelson 2003). Looking at the period
between the two world wars, which was riddled with economic crises
that followed one another, Cornell et al. (2020) conclude that the polit-
ical institutions in established democracies were almost without excep-
tion able to maintain their stability and survive under harsh conditions.
Hence, there is little to suggest that COVID-19 would deal a devastating—
let alone lasting—blow to the institutions of old Western democracies.

Impact on Democratic Backsliding

Democratic forms of government became the global norm at the end of

the Cold War and most formerly autocratic states adopted (at least de jure)
democratic institutions. Some of these new democracies have consoli-
dated, but others have reverted to more authoritarian types of govern-
ment. These autocratizing trends have intensified during the last decade
and, according to Lührmann and Lindberg (2019), we are now witnessing
a “third wave of autocratization” globally. Keane (2020) refers to these
worrying trends as the rise of “New Despotism” in the world. While the
previous waves of autocratization were dominated by abrupt events, such

Rapeli and Sakkonen  �  How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy?27
as military coups, the modal type of democratic breakdown in today’s
world is the gradual erosion of democratic institutions by democratically
elected incumbents (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019; Svolik 2019). Lühr-
mann and Lindberg (2019) have estimated that such cases make up 68
percent of contemporary instances of autocratization.
Most democratic breakdowns in today’s world thus result from what
Svolik (2019) has termed “executive takeovers,” whereby democratically
elected incumbents seek to undermine political opposition by imple-
menting a series of discrete actions that gradually dismantle the demo-
cratic checks on the executive (Bermeo 2016). These measures are usually
enacted following a democratic and constitutional procedure, and none
of the actions are likely to threaten democracy in isolation (Bermeo 2016;
Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018; Luo and Przeworski 2019; Svolik 2019). Yet, the
cumulative effect of these measures leads to a situation where the opposi-
tion’s ability to challenge the incumbent is seriously undermined (Bermeo
2016; Luo and Przeworski 2016). In such “electoral authoritarian regimes”
(Schedler 2013) the incumbent regime controls most of the levers of state
power despite nominally functioning democratic institutions.
The management of the COVID-19 pandemic requires governments
to undertake a series of emergency measures that may temporarily re-
move some democratic checks and balances and suspend civil rights. Yet,
precisely because many of the actions advancing “executive takeovers”
are framed as legitimate measures to address some urgent public matter
(see Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018) there is a risk that emergency measures
enacted under the COVID-19 pandemic will be used inappropriately to
further dismantle checks on the executive (on this, see also Lührmann,
Edgell et al. 2020). Indeed, a recent study by Lührmann and Rooney (2020)
finds that “democracies are 75 percent more likely to erode under a state
of emergency than without” (p. 3). There have been worrying trends in
already autocratizing regimes. Hungary’s Prime Minister Orbán has been
granted extensive emergency powers with which he “can suspend ex-
isting laws and rule by decree for an indefinite period” (Kelemen 2020).
There is a great danger that these sweeping powers will aggravate the
existing trend of executive domination in Hungary, even if some of the
emergency measures will be overturned when the pandemic situation
eases. The V-Dem Institute has estimated that 48 countries in the world
are at a “high risk” of democratic backsliding as a result of the COVID-19
pandemic (Lührmann, Edgell et al. 2020).
Autocratic incumbents also often use “strategic manipulation of elec-
tions” to prevent the opposition from having a fair chance to compete
(Bermeo, 2016; Schedler, 2013). The public health risks associated with the
pandemic have led to several countries postponing elections. While such

28 Democratic Theory  �  Winter 2020

actions can be justified on the grounds of public health protection and
ensuring equal campaigning opportunities, there is a risk that electoral
delays are being used in a strategic manner to advantage the incumbents
(on this, see, for example, Repucci 2020). The pandemic situation also
means that the incumbents’ media presence is greatly increased and the
opposition will have even more difficulties in communicating its message
to voters (on the situation in Poland, see Markowski and Tworzecki 2020).
Furthermore, the emergency measures enacted in electoral autocracies
such as Hungary and Russia have involved harsh media restrictions that
in effect stifle any criticism of the government.
Yet, the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may be prob-
lematic for many electoral authoritarian leaders. The electoral advantage
of many contemporary authoritarian incumbents rests not only on the
elimination of a viable opposition but also on the provision of economic
benefits to a part of the electorate (on this, see, for example, Markowski
and Tworzecki 2020; Svolik 2019). The grave public health and economic
consequences of the pandemic may seriously dent the “performance le-
gitimacy” of these regimes, and can undermine the regimes’ ability to
fund generous social welfare schemes and to distribute targeted benefits
to its supporters. Therefore, the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pan-
demic may be rather destabilizing to contemporary electoral authoritar-
ian regimes, especially if they have to face electoral challenges while the
socio-economic effects of the pandemic are still ongoing.

Concluding Remarks

As far as established democracies go, both previous scholarship and pre-

liminary analyses of the impact of COVID-19 suggest 1) significant but
short-lived popularity bumps for current political leaders, 2) small and
positive yet fleeting effects on attitudes such as political trust, and 3) zero
impact on party identification or other factors, which might cause per-
manent political realignments. In sum, the bulk of the evidence points
toward effects that are visible only on the surface, but not in the founda-
tions of Western democracy. Even before, when established democracies
have been tested, they have endured.
It is true that democracies have not been tested by pandemics or sim-
ilar events in the contemporary media landscape, where public opinion
can be manipulated through effective spreading of disinformation. In-
deed, many observers have characterized the COVID-19 crisis as also being
the biggest disinformation crisis we have ever faced. We are perhaps
still temporally too close to seeing the possible impacts on established

Rapeli and Sakkonen  �  How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy?29
democracies. The crisis is still ongoing so we do not know how demo-
cratic publics will eventually evaluate the quality of the democratic re-
sponse by their governments. It does not seem totally unlikely that major
policy failures might profoundly impact popular perceptions of demo-
cratic institutions. Moreover, even if public attitudes and voting patterns
remain largely stable, COVID-19 could have major consequences for fu-
ture policy-making. Not only is it likely that old democracies will pay
more attention to public health issues, but democratic processes are also
probably going to be affected. As findings from Spain already indicate, a
long-term repercussion could be that experts are given a stronger voice in
policy-making, pushing representative democracy a notch toward a more
technocratic model of democracy.
In terms of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on democracies
already experiencing backsliding, the more immediate and the long-
term effects are likely to diverge. The emergency measures associated
with the COVID-19 pandemic can provide autocratic incumbents with
further tools to eradicate the constraints to their rule in the short term.
Yet, the predicted economic fall-out may seriously hamper the “perfor-
mance legitimacy” and the distribution of economic benefits that these
regimes’ electoral popularity partially rest on. Consequently, for elec-
toral authoritarian regimes, the long-term impact of COVID-19 could be
very negative.

Lauri Rapeli is Director of Research in the Social Science Research Institute at

Åbo Akademi University (Finland). His main research interests include political
behavior, particularly electoral behavior. E-mail: lauri.rapeli@abo.fi

Inga Saikkonen is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow in the Social Science

Research Institute at Åbo Akademi University (Finland). Her research interests in-
clude democratization, electoral authoritarian regimes, and electoral clientelism.
E-mail: inga.saikkonen@abo.fi

References
Amat, Francesc, Arenas, Andreu, Falcó-Gimeno, Albert, and Jordi Muñoz. 2020.
“Pandemics Meet Democracy. Experimental Evidence from the COVID-19 Cri-
sis in Spain.” Working paper. Available at SocArXiv, April 6, 2020. doi:10.31235/
osf.io/dkusw. (Accessed May 7, 2020.)
Bermeo, Nancy. 2016. “On Democratic Backsliding.” Journal of Democracy 27(1): 5–19.
doi:10.1353/jod.2016.0012.
Blais, André, Bol, Damien, Giani, Marco, and Peter Loewen. 2020. “The effect of
COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy?”
QPE Working Paper 2020–1, King’s College London. Available at https://osf.io/
preprints/socarxiv/7hpj9. (Accessed May 7, 2020).

30 Democratic Theory  �  Winter 2020

Cornell, Agnes, Møller, Jørgen and Svend-Erik Skaaning. 2020. Democratic Stability
in an Age of Crisis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
EssentialResearch. 2020. “Covid-19 Report, June week 1.” Available at https://
essentialvision.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Essential-Covid-19-Deck-
June-wk1.pdf. (Accessed June 5, 2020).
Harell, Allison. 2020. “How Canada’s Pandemic Is Shifting Political Views.” Report
for the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Available at https://policyoptions.
irpp.org/fr/magazines/avril-2020/how-canadas-pandemicresponse-is-shifting-
political-views/. (Accessed May 7, 2020).
Hetherington, Marc J., and Michael Nelson. 2003. “Anatomy of a Rally Effect:
George W. Bush and the War on Terrorism.” PS: Political Science and Politics 36
(1): 37–42. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096503001665.
Keane, J. 2020. The New Despotism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kelemen, R. D. 2020 “Hungary issued a coronavirus law.” The Washington Post, 2
April. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/02/hungary-
just-became-coronavirus-autocracy/(Accessed April 28, 2020).
Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. 2018. How Democracies Die. London: Penguin
Books.
Luo, Z., and A. Przeworski. 2019. “Democracy and Its Vulnerabilities: Dynamics of
Democratic Backsliding”. Working paper. Available at https://papers.ssrn.com/
sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3469373. (Accessed December 16, 2019).
Lührmann, Anna, and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2019. “A Third Wave of Autocrati-
zation Is Here: What Is New About It?” Democratization 26 (7): 1095–1113.
10.1080/13510347.2019.1582029.
Lührmann, A., Amanda B. Edgell, and Seraphine F. Maerz. 2020. “Pandemic Back-
sliding: Does Covid-19 Put Democracy at Risk?” University of Gothenburg, Variet-
ies of Democracy Institute: V-Dem Policy Brief No. 23. Available at www.v-dem.net/
en/publications/briefing-papers/. (Accessed April 28, 2020).
Lührmann, A. Seraphine F. Maerz, Sandra Grahn, Nazifa Alizada, Lisa Gastaldi,
Sebastian Hellmeier, Garry Hindle, and Staffan I. Lindberg. 2020. “Autocra-
tization Surges—Resistance Grows. Democracy Report 2020.” Varieties of De-
mocracy Institute (V-Dem). Available at www.v-dem.net/media/filer_public/f0/5d/
f05d46d8-626f-4b20-8e4e-53d4b134bfcb/democracy_report_2020_low.pdf.
(Accessed March 16, 2020).
Lührmann, A., and B. Rooney. 2020. “Autocratization by Decree: States of Emer-
gency and Democratic Decline.” University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democ-
racy Institute: Working Paper No. 85, 2nd Edition. Available at www.v-dem.net/
media/filer_public/31/1d/311d5d45-8747-45a4-b46f-37aa7ad8a7e8/wp_85.pdf.
(Accessed May 14, 2020).
Markowski, R. and Tworzecki, H. 2020. “What happened to Poland’s May 10 elec-
tion?” The Washington Post, 10 May. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/
politics/2020/05/10/we-asked-what-poles-think-about-voting-pandemic-elec-
tion-scheduled-may-10/. (Accessed on May 18, 2020.)
Mueller, John E. 1970. “Presidential Popularity from Truman to Johnson.” American
Political Science Review 64 (1): 18–34. DOI: 10.2307/1955610.

Rapeli and Sakkonen  �  How Will the COVID-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy?31
Murray, Shoon. 2017. “The ‘Rally-’Round-the-Flag’ Phenomenon and the Diversion-
ary Use of Force.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, June 2017, pp. 1–18.
DOI:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.518.
Repucci, S. 2020. “The Coronavirus Takes Aim at Electoral Democracy.” Freedom
House Perspectives. Available at https://freedomhouse.org/article/coronavi-
rus-takes-aim-electoral-democracy 1/. (Accessed 19 May 2020.)
Schedler, Andreas. 2013. The Politics of Uncertainty: Sustaining and Subverting Electoral
Authoritarianism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Svolik, Milan. 2019. “Polarization versus Democracy”. Journal of Democracy 30 (3):
20–32. https://doi.org/10.1353/jod.2019.0039.

32 Democratic Theory  �  Winter 2020