A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada
A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada
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DOI：
10.1017/s0008423920000311
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发表时间：
2020-04-16
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Zhilin O
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Merkley E;Bridgman A;Loewen PJ;Owen T;Ruths D;Zhilin O
COVID-19大流行需要以近代史上前所未有的方式努力协调政府和社会的行动。公民个人需要无限期地自愿牺牲经济和社会活动，以保护他人。与此同时，我们知道，公众舆论往往在高度突出的问题上变得两极分化，除非政治精英达成共识（Berinsky，2009; Zaller，1992）。因此，避免精英和公众两极分化，对于社会有效应对这一流行病至关重要。在美国，精英阶层和公众对大流行的严重性似乎存在两极分化（Gadarian等人，2020年）。其他证据表明，两极分化正在破坏对社交距离的遵守（Cornelson和Miloucheva，2020）。使用多方法方法，我们表明，加拿大政治精英和公众正处于一个独特的时期，在与COVID-19大流行相关的重要问题上，如其严重性和社交距离的必要性，跨党派共识。
The COVID-19 pandemic requires an effort to coordinate the actions of government and society in a way unmatched in recent history. Individual citizens need to voluntarily sacrifice economic and social activity for an indefinite period of time to protect others. At the same time, we know that public opinion tends to become polarized on highly salient issues, except when political elites are in consensus (Berinsky, 2009; Zaller, 1992). Avoiding elite and public polarization is thus essential for an effective societal response to the pandemic. In the United States, there appears to be elite and public polarization on the severity of the pandemic (Gadarian et al., 2020). Other evidence suggests that polarization is undermining compliance with social distancing (Cornelson and Miloucheva, 2020). Using a multimethod approach, we show that Canadian political elites and the public are in a unique period of cross-partisan consensus on important questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as its seriousness and the necessity of social distancing.