RAPID: Collaborative Research: COVID-19, Crises, and Support for the Rule of Law

法治是现代自由民主的基础。然而，像新冠肺炎(CoronaVirus)这样的危机，对支撑世界各地现代民主国家的这一长期规范构成了挑战。在危机中，一个人对法治的支持受到了考验，因为他们对自己、家人和朋友的健康、安全和福利的根本关切，与一种抽象的信念对立起来，即政府在实施潜在的拯救生命的政策之前“勾选了所有的框”。在这种情况下，一个人对政府采取果断行动的渴望可能会压倒他对法治等抽象民主原则的承诺，并随后导致他的承诺下降。因此，评估危机如何影响人们对基本民主规范的支持，对于了解危机对自由民主秩序的健康和稳定的影响至关重要。该项目利用新冠肺炎疫情来考察这种关系，并确定(A)政府对危机的应对是否会影响公民对法治的支持；(B)公民对政府努力的信心在精英和专家的暗示下是得到加强还是受到削弱；(C)在危机消散后，公民的态度是否发生变化。这些理论目标中的每一个都与研究设计的三个独特特征之一捆绑在一起，研究设计依赖于对欧洲民主国家的调查。首先，为了检查政府应对措施的效果，该项目将于2020年4月收集四个西方民主国家对法治的支持情况的调查数据：德国、西班牙、英国和美国。其次，德国最初的专家组调查将使评估个人层面的法治判决在短期、中期和长期内的变化成为可能。最后，嵌入式调查实验将提供因果证据，说明精英和专家的暗示如何影响对政策的接受和对法治关键方面的支持，如遵守法律和支持对行政和立法权力的司法制约。该项目每个部分的发现将提供对公民与民主原则关系中危机激活的个人层面动态的洞察。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The rule of law is at the foundation of modern liberal democracy. Crises like the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, however, pose a challenge to this long-standing norm that buttresses modern democracies the world over. In the midst of a crisis, a person’s support for the rule of law is tested as their fundamental concern for the health, safety, and welfare of themselves, their families, and their friends is pitted against an abstract belief that the government “check all the boxes” before carrying out potentially lifesaving policies. In these situations, one’s desire for decisive government action may overwhelm, and subsequently lead to a decline in, one’s commitment to abstract democratic principles like the rule of law. Consequently, evaluating how crises affect support for fundamental democratic norms is critical for understanding their impact on the health and stability of the liberal democratic order.This project leverages the COVID-19 outbreak to examine this relationship and determine (a) whether governmental responses to crises affect citizens’ support for the rule of law; (b) whether citizens’ faith in government efforts is buttressed or undermined in response to elite and expert cues; and (c) whether citizens’ attitudes change after a crisis has dissipated. Each of these theoretical aims is tied to one of three unique features of the research design, which relies upon surveys of European democracies. First, to examine the effects of governmental responses, the project will make collect survey data on support for the rule of law across four Western democracies in April 2020: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Second, an original panel survey in Germany will enable the evaluation of changes to individual-level rule of law judgments in the short, medium, and long term. Lastly, embedded survey experiments will provide causal evidence on how elite and expert cues affect both the acceptance of policies and support for key aspects of the rule of law like compliance with laws and support for judicial constraints on executive and legislative power. Findings from each part of the project will provide insights into the individual-level dynamics crises activate in citizens’ relationship with democratic principles.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.